Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics
by tilante
Summary: Five months of Alex living in his dorm room is starting to stress Justin and Alex.  Drama ensues.  Fifth story in the series that begins with "Alex Gets Punished".
1. Chapter 1

It was a bright Monday morning, and the sunlight was slanting in through the window of Justin Russo's dorm room, creeping its way along at a rate that, had he been awake, Justin could have informed you was one degree every four minutes, which brought it onto Justin's eyes at 9:41 AM. It took about another twenty seconds before the reddish light that filtered through his eyelids woke Justin up, but the effect when it did was immediate.

"Shit!" he cried out, sitting bolt upright and turning to look at the clock on his desk, which Justin regularly reset to keep its time accurate. Beside him, a girl with hair that matched his in its black color (although much longer, curlier, and considerably more shiny) opened her eyes and gave out a sound that would have caused any vulture in a hundred-yard radius to look for the dying animal that was obviously its source.

"Shit," Justin repeated as he straddled his sister in the process of getting out of bed, then crossed the tiny dorm room in three quick strides to get to the closet. Opening it, he blinked to clear his sleep-blurred eyes, reached to turn on the room's light (drawing another tortured-animal sound from his sister Alex), then reached in with both hands and started picking through his clothes, scowling as he did.

"You've got to quit turning the alarm off," Justin growled. "I've got fifteen minutes to get to class!"

A muffled response came from the bed, which years of dealing with Alex's hatred of mornings enabled Justin to interpret as, "So teleport there already."

"I did _that_ when you turned off the alarm Friday," he snapped back, pulling on a pair of tan pants as he did. "If I keep doing it all the time, someone's going to see, Alex. And then -"

"And then wizardry will be exposed to the world, they'll lock us all away, and it'll be the end of the world as we know it. Which I'm fine with, if I can sleep through it." Alex grabbed Justin's pillow and pulled it down the bed, standing it on its side to make it a barrier against the sunlight coming in, at the same time moving into the center of the bed and drawing the covers tighter around her.

Justin watched as she did that, scowling as he pulled on a sweater over his shirt and grabbed for his jacket, not looking forward to the November air outside even with the layers he was putting on. _And would it hurt the university's budget that badly to turn it up a few degrees in the dorm?_ He thought. _I feel like I'm freezing already. _

He ran his hand through his hair, grabbed his backpack, opened the door and looked jealously back at Alex, snug in the bed. "Don't forget to meet me for lunch at one at the commons," he said back to her.

A muffled, "Uh-huh," was his answer, and Justin pulled the door shut as Alex started to say, "Don't forget to -" The door slammed shut, and Alex winced at it, then finished "- turn out the light. Great." Unwilling to get out of the warm bed, Alex reached a hand out behind her to the desk, felt for her wand, grasped it, muttered, "_Fiat tenebrae_" as she waved it, then wriggled deeper under the covers as the light went out.

Justin slipped in the door of the lecture hall three minutes late, sidling through it and then closing it by hand instead of letting it swing closed, so as not to make any extra noise. The hall was amphitheatre-styled, with curving rows of seats rising up from the lecturer's area, where Professor Billingsley's teaching assistant Alan was writing on the board while he spoke, making his usual near-spasmodic jerks of the chalk that somehow managed to form recognizable words. "… should be your last resort. What's the first thing you should do to prevent bugs in your programs? Anyone?"

By the time Alan turned around at the end of his question, Justin was in a seat and had his backpack on the floor. He raised his hand immediately, but Charlotte was a hair faster - and was closer to the professor. "Yes, Charlotte?" Alan said,

"Use language and library features that prevent the types of bugs that are most likely," the brown-haired girl said.

"Yes," Alan replied with a smile and a nod, his long dark blond hair bobbing a bit with the motion. "You can also prevent errors keeping your code simple," he went on, turning back to the board and starting to write again. "Simple to understand is simple to write and simple to debug. Your next line of defense is…."

It was all review at this point - this was the last week before 'dead week', and then finals would follow. And then would come Christmas break…. _Yeah. And mom and dad are going to expect me to be home for those two weeks. Which is going to cause all kinds of fun with Alex._ Even as he thought, Justin kept listening to the review in the background, scratching down notes on things the TA was emphasizing, knowing there was a good chance those would be on the final.

_And Alex _should_ be studying too. That GED certificate isn't going to just magically appear. At least, not a real one._ She'd tried that early on - using magic to make one. While she was able to make the certificate just fine, though, as soon as the school she took it to tried to verify it online, she was sunk. Justin had actually been glad of that, in a way: Alex could definitely stand the experience of actually having to work for something for a change. _Hell, it'd be nice if she'd just do something to help out without my having to nag her. _

The last five months really hadn't gone quite the way Justin had hoped. Yes, it was great to have Alex living with him - to get to go to sleep with her and wake up with her every day, to be able to spend every evening with her. On the other hand, though, the previous six months of living in the dorm away from her had insulated Justin from some of Alex's other traits. Like how easily she got bored - trying to do any studying or get his homework done felt like a struggle these days, with Alex wanting his attention every half hour or so… and of course, if she didn't get that attention, she'd revert back to getting his attention in other ways.

He smiled a little at that. Some of her ways of getting his attention were quite… stimulating, to say the least. But other times….

_"Justin!"_

_"Not now Alex - I'm trying to study." He hadn't even looked up at her this time, after two hours of trying to review for his sociology midterm, which Alex didn't seem to understand was 33% of his grade. As in, fail this, and you won't pass the class._

_"Okay," she said with the what-happens-next-won't-be-my-fault tone that Justin knew only too well. "If you don't want to do anything about the fire over here, then I'll just have to go pull the alarm."_

_"Fire? What?" Justin jerked around to look where Alex was, then jumped up and rushed over toward the smoking microwave. "Ah! Gah! Alex!" he called out as he ran to it, in unconscious imitation of their father. Hitting the "stop" button, he popped it open, grabbed the smoldering bag of popcorn by the corner, hoping it wouldn't actually burst into flames, and ran out of the room at full tilt, heading for the bathroom and water._

Justin's smile had turned into a scowl as he remembered that incident. _And just to add insult to injury, I was in my underwear, and had to spend two minutes apologizing to Alex through the door before she'd let me back into my own room. Yeah._

With finals coming up, Justin wasn't looking forward to going through it again. _I'd better talk to her beforehand, let her know how important this is. And maybe talk to her about Christmas break too._ Justin nodded to himself and turned his attention back to the review.

The lecture's time slot ended at noon, and Justin went from there to the library, found a reasonably quiet spot, set up his laptop, and started to work finishing his paper for Sociology - which was the other third of his grade, besides the midterm and final. _But no pressure there. Right? Right._ He couldn't keep his mind from straying back to Alex, though, even as he worked. _She's probably still sleeping,_ he thought with more than a tinge of jealousy. _While I've got two papers to finish this week, and still need to do something about a Christmas present for her. Not to mention everything else…._

"Damn," Justin said aloud, then immediately looked around in embarrassment. The library wasn't too busy at this hour, but there were a few other people around... and sure enough, one of them was looking at him. A girl - a beautiful girl with blue streaks in her brown hair, dark eye makeup, and ruby-red lipstick. Justin stopped and blinked, staring at her as she smiled, got up, and walked to his table.

"Hey, Justin! I didn't know you were going here!" the girl said, and Justin found himself getting to his feet to greet her, only to be hugged very, very tightly. When he spoke, his mouth felt very, very dry.

"Hi, Miranda," he said, and his voice sounded strange even to him.


	2. Chapter 2

The first time Alex woke up that morning was when Justin woke and hurried out. The second time was when her feet came out from under the blankets as she slept, and the chill eventually penetrated her slumber, causing her to wake up, rearrange the blankets, and look at the clock. It was 11:23.

_Oh, good. I've got another hour before I need to get up. _She turned onto her back and looked up at the ceiling of once-white plaster, aged to a sort of faded ivory color, but with one brownish streak that made Alex wonder what had made it whenever she saw it. _This room really needs to be some other color. _Any_ other color._ She sighed then, looking around the room. To the casual observer, it still looked the same way it had five months ago, before she'd moved in with Justin. The only tell-tales were her clothes on the floor, the GED study manual she'd grown to hate on the desk, her fuzzy slippers on the floor by the bed, and her toiletry bag, on the floor by the door.

_It's like I don't even live here,_ she thought sourly. Okay, yes, Justin could be kicked out of the dorm if the RAs find out I'm living here. But still... it grated on Alex that she had to live somewhere that she couldn't express herself, couldn't bring her friends over... _Friends. Yeah. I barely even see Harper any more, since I'm not going to school with her. I just get to hear about her second-hand from Lexie._

And that was the root of the problem, really. Lexie. Alex had thought that having her double take over her old life while she moved in with Justin would be great... but she hadn't realized how much she was going to miss... well, _everything_. Her room was Lexie's now. All her stuff was Lexie's now. Alex worked some of the shifts at the Sub Station, so she got to see her parents and Max still, but not nearly as much as she used to, and it wasn't the same, seeing them during work time. _Not to mention that I only get half of what Dad pays us. Which is little enough as it is._

Sighing again, Alex turned over and looked down at the sheets - Justin's sheets, of course - and idly traced patterns on them with her finger as she thought. _And what do I get?_ Well... Justin, of course. _That_ was wonderful - most of the time, at least. The hours they got to spend cuddling together were great, but they couldn't spend all their time doing that. And during the week, during the six to ten hours Justin wasn't there, she was bored out of her mind. It was so much easier just to sleep the day away, and she knew she _should_ be studying so she could take that GED and go to art school, but studying hadn't ever been her thing.

_I need a break from this room today. _Alex sat up in bed, put her chin on her hand, and drummed the fingers of her other hand on the sheets. What to do, what to do...

_I know! I'll make Justin take me to Coney Island for the day. _Alex smiled and nodded. "Yes - that'll be fun for me, and Justin _really _needs to relax. He's doing his whole 'oh my God, everything is going to fall apart if I'm not absolutely perfect' thing. He needs to take a day off, get relaxed, take me out to a movie, and then I'll make him _really_ relaxed." Sliding out of the bed, Alex stood up, stretched, then looked at herself in the mirror. _Well, if I'm going to get Justin to play hooky, I'm going to need to look even cuter than usual. And that's not easy when you're naturally this cute._

Forty-five minutes later, Alex gave herself one last check in the mirror. Purple leggings _(I'll half freeze, but he loves my legs)_, short black skirt _(will remind him of cheerleaders, which I know he likes)_, tight purple sweater _(wish my boobs were bigger, but flaunt what you've got)_, nice long scarf _(to keep me warm - not _everything_ is part of the plan)_, and feather tassel braided into my hair _(to give him an excuse to play with it)_. _Perfect. Five minutes and he won't know what hit him._ _Now to go get him. _She looked at the clock. 12:11. _Hmm. If I know Justin - and I do - he'll have gone to the library to study. I'll get him there, instead of waiting for lunch, and we can have lunch out there. Yeah._

Never one to waste time doing things the hard way when she could use magic, Alex headed for the front desk as soon as she entered the library. A bored-looking grad student sat there, book open and pencil in hand as she did her homework while waiting for someone to come up to check out. As Alex walked up, the other girl looked up at her and frowned slightly. Alex could almost already hear the subtle tones of aggravation in the 'how can I help you' that was forming, and didn't wait for it. "Don't get up - just need one of your maps," she said, reaching for the brochures as the grad student went back to her work.

_Okay now, let's find Justin._ Alex walked away from the counter, glanced around to make sure no one was looking, only to find two nerdy-looking guys looking at her, both in separate places. _Hm. Pitfalls of being so cute. Maybe go to the stairs. It should be private enough there._ Checking the map, she headed back to the stairs, went up half a flight, then pulled out her wand. _"After me the boys are lustin', but I just want to find my Justin,"_ she said, tapping the wand against the map as she did, and a big HE IS HERE arrow appeared on the map, near the front of the third floor.

When she got to the third floor, Alex checked the map again, then decided to go the long way around - it was longer, yes, but if the map was right in how it was showing the tables, and Justin was at the one he was by, she'd come up behind him and be able to surprise him. Getting close, she slipped into the last aisle of books before the study area, went over to where Justin would be, then peered through the metal shelving to make sure he wasn't looking her way.

He wasn't, but Alex's pleasure in succeeding on sneaking up on him quickly went away as she saw that Justin wasn't sitting alone. There was a girl there, and he was talking quietly to her. Alex couldn't see her face, but she had a figure, nice hair, and was leaning toward Justin, obviously interested in what he was saying. A surge of jealousy shot through Alex, and she closed her eyes for a moment. _Okay. Calm down. This is how you got into all the trouble with the love spell stuff, remember? It's probably just someone from his class that he's studying with. Right? Right. So, you just go over there nice and calmly and introduce yourself._

Turning away, Alex walked down to the end of the aisle, choosing the end that would put Justin facing more toward her and the girl away from her. She paused a moment, pulled out a compact, checked to make sure she was looking good, thinking about what she'd say as she did. _All right. Here goes nothing._

Alex came around the corner, walking naturally, making a beeline toward Justin. Crossing the ten feet to him only took a few steps, and as she approached, Justin looked up, then looked surprised. Not worrying about that, Alex said, "Hi, Justin," put a possessive hand on his shoulder, then leaned down and kissed him on the cheek before turning to look at the other girl, saying, "Hi, I'm Alex, Justin's girlfrie -"

And then she cut off and blanched white as she saw who she was talking to. _Miranda? What the hell is she doing here? And what did I just tell her!_


	3. Chapter 3

Alex started to reach for her wand immediately, but Justin grabbed her by the wrist, looking at Miranda as he did. "You remember Alex, I'm sure. And her pranks."

"Of course," Miranda replied with a nod, that her expression belied as she looked back and forth at Alex and Justin. "What's she doing here, though? Shouldn't she still be at school?"

"Oh, they're letting us go off-campus for lunch now, and after lunch I've just got a study period, so I came up here to have lunch with Justin." _Yeah. I crossed half of Manhattan to have lunch with him. That's so believable. Damn, why didn't he just let me take care of this with a spell?_ "He's going to help me with my math while I'm up here. Isn't that right?"

"Yeah," Justin said, nodding. Suddenly, he realized that he hadn't let go of Alex's wrist yet... and that Miranda's eyes had wandered to his hand there. He kept his hand there, thinking that would be less suspicious than letting go as soon as Miranda noticed. _I hope._

"Uh-huh." Miranda didn't sound entirely convinced, but she didn't ask any more questions, instead standing up from the table. "Well, I guess you'll need to go now, Justin. It was nice to see you. Oh... do you still have the same cell phone number?"

"Yeah," he said again, mentally cringing. _Oh, hell. Time for Alex to get her jealousy going again._

"Good. I'll give you a call later. You two have a good lunch." She gave them a wave, then walked back to her table.

As soon as Miranda's back was turned, Alex gave her brother a glare, pulling her wrist out of his hand as she did. "Okay, Justin," she said in a syrupy-sweet voice. "Let's go have lunch. Unless you'd rather hang out with Miranda? Because if you'd rather do that, I'm _totally_ okay with that." She kept her eyes on him, continuing to glare in a way that definitely did not match her words or tone.

"No, you already came all this way," Justin said, already putting his laptop back into its padded slot in his backpack and zipped up one side. Glancing first at Miranda to make sure she wasn't looking, he gave Alex a warning glare as he shouldered the still half-unzipped backpack, stepped away from the table, and pushed his chair in. "Come on."

As soon as they were in the stairwell, Alex smacked her brother on the shoulder. "What the hell was that?" she hissed, stopping. "First you don't want to have sex last night, and now you're hanging out with _her?_"

"I told you I was tired," Justin hissed back. "You may get to sleep to noon, but I don't. And we aren't talking about this here. The whole damn stairwell echoes, and anyone could hear!" He hadn't stopped, and Alex stared at him for a second, then narrowed her eyes and lifted one leg up, saying "_Geilsjay timesday._" Everything froze around her - Justin included - and she smiled, then turned and quickly hopped back to where Miranda was sitting, her World History book in front of her. Alex flipped open one of Miranda's notebooks, roughly tore out a piece of paper, then took Miranda's pen from her hand and wrote SLUT! on it.

She wound up having to hop into an office to get tape, and by the time she got back to the stairwell, the sign affixed to Miranda's back and her pen put back into her hand, Alex's leg felt like it was going to fall off. But it was _so_ worth it.

Putting her leg back down, Alex tried to follow Justin down the stairs, but her leg buckled after being kept up so long, and she half-fell down the stairs, letting out a small shriek as she did. Four stairs down, Justin turned immediately and caught her, his backpack dropping from his arm as he did. He barely managed to keep both of them from tumbling down the stairs together, but somehow he did it.

"Oh my god, Alex... are you okay?" Justin set his little sister down on one of the steps, then knelt on one leg in front of her, his eyes wide with concern, as he looked her over, putting his hands on her arms and legs, checking her. "Did you break anything?"

"No... I'm fine," she got out, her voice a little shaky. "Thank you," she said then, and moved to kiss him, only to stop halfway there as she heard Miranda's voice.

"Is everything okay?" Miranda asked, coming down the stairs quickly toward them. "I heard a yell."

"Yeah - Alex tripped, but I caught her." Justin raised his head, but didn't get up, keeping his hand on Alex's leg. "It doesn't look like she broke anything."

"Oh... oh God," Alex half-moaned, and both Justin and Miranda moved to her.

"What's wrong?" Justin asked. Alex pointed down the stairs, and her brother frowned as he turned to look where she was pointing... to where Justin's backpack had come to rest, computer parts visibly scattered around it.

Miranda gasped, and Justin swallowed, his jaw visibly tightening, then turned back to Alex. "Don't worry about that. You're more important." He moved forward and wrapped his arms around Alex in a tight hug, which she returned, burying her face against his chest. Miranda looked away, and Justin quickly kissed Alex on top of her head, then said, "Do you think you can stand up?"

She nodded jerkily, and Justin stood up slowly, drawing Alex up onto her feet with him. Once they were standing, he took Alex's hand. "Okay. Let's go back up there, and you sit down for a minute." Alex didn't make any answer, but she turned and went up the steps. Miranda, still at the top of the stairs, backed up to make room for them, and Justin took Alex to the landing, then through the door, over to the nearest table. "I'll be right back," he said. "I'm just going to get my backpack. Okay?"

"Yeah," Alex replied, her voice small, blinking back the tears she felt threatening to start. Justin left, and Miranda sat down beside Alex, looking concerned.

"Hey." Miranda put a hand on Alex's shoulder, squeezed lightly. "You seem pretty shaken up. Can I get you anything?"

Alex started to shake her head 'no', then remembered the sign she'd put on Miranda's back and blushed, feeling guilty. "Yes, please," she said aloud. "Some... some tissues would be nice."

"Okay." Miranda got up and headed toward the bathroom. As soon as she was moving, Alex pulled out her wand, used it to tear the sign from Miranda's back, making it fly into her hand, where she quickly crumpled it and put it into her pocket.

Justin got back first. Seeing Miranda gone, he crouched down by Alex and took her hand. "You have got to be more careful," he said. "I love you, Alex. I can't lose you." Quickly, he kissed Alex on the mouth, then started to wipe at her tears with his fingers. "We're taking the elevator down this time. Do you want to get lunch, or do you want to go home?"

"I am so sorry about your computer," Alex said, ignoring Justin's question. "Are you going to have to redo all that work you did over the weekend? I can help if you do - I can type for you, or something."

"It's okay. I might be able to put the hard drive in another computer and get it out. And if I can't, I'll tell my teachers what happened, see if I can get an extension. I'm just worried about _you_ right now." Justin smiled at his sister, and gave her another kiss - this time on the forehead, since Miranda had just come around the corner, carrying tissues.

"Here you go," Miranda said, holding the tissues out to Alex. Justin reached up and took them, started to wipe at Alex's face, but she blushed red and snatched them from him, turned to clean herself up. Justin frowned, wondering both why she did that and why she blushed, but stood up and moved back a little, watching her.

As he watched Alex, Miranda watched him, fighting to keep a frown from her face. Something seemed to be up, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it, and after a few moments, she shook her head slightly, then said, "Okay, well, it doesn't look like you need me here now, so I'm going to let you two alone now. I'm glad you're okay Alex."

Alex let out a muffled "thank you" through the tissues, and she and Justin both waited as Miranda walked away. Once it seemed safe, Justin crouched down again, took the tissues away from Alex and set them aside, then took his little sister in his arms and kissed her, giving her a full kiss this time - a surface kiss only, but one that lasted for several seconds before he broke it. Resting his forehead against hers, Justin said, "You scared me there. We're keeping you off stairs for a while. You know, falls on stairs are the second-biggest cause of major injuries, after car accidents."

"No, I didn't know that," Alex said, the ghost of a smile touching her lips. "But I'm not surprised _you_ did. Dork." She leaned forward then and kissed him this time, thinking _maybe I should fall down the stairs again, if it gets him like this._ She slipped her tongue into Justin's mouth, then pulled it back immediately, teasing him, and he answered by taking her in his arms again and gently probing her with his tongue in return.

And so neither of them saw Miranda turn the corner on her way out and stop, staring at the pair of them, frozen in stark astonishment, eyes wide and cheeks turning red as she watched brother and sister kiss passionately.


	4. Chapter 4

_Oh. My. God._ Miranda took a step back, behind the bookcases, swallowed, and leaned against one of the shelves. After a moment, she put her bag down, her head feeling like it was spinning as she thought. _First she says she's his girlfriend. Okay, that could be some kind of prank. But that kiss? No. They really are…._

She stopped, shook her head, then crouched down to look between the shelves from a vantage where she wouldn't be at their eye level. Justin and Alex broke their kiss, though she couldn't tell which one of them broke it off. _Not like it matters. They must've kissed for a good two minutes straight there. Damn._

Justin stood up and put out both his hands to help Alex up. "Okay," he said. "Let's go get lunch, then get you back home." He reached up a hand to brush her hair, twined a lock of it around his finger, looking down at her possessively.

"About that," Alex said, and bit her lower lip. "I'm getting _really_ bored sitting around in the dorm room. Could we go to Coney Island today?" She tilted her head to the side, smiling, and blinked once. "Please?"

"I can't," Justin said, shaking his head. "We're starting our review for the final in Discrete Math, and I need to see if I can get my papers for Sociology and history off this hard drive - and go talk to my professors if I can't."

Alex looked down, guilt and unhappiness mixed in her expression, but she nodded. "I'm sorry," she said, her voice small, but Justin stepped in and hugged her with one arm, used his other hand to tilt her face back up and smiled down at her. "Hey. None of that. We'll go next week, after I have the papers turned in and all that. I can take a day off with you then, okay?"

"Okay," Alex let out, making a smile that was obviously forced. Justin brushed her hair again, gave her a quick kiss. "I'm sorry. If it weren't the last week of classes, I would. You know that, right?"

"I know," she said, her smile looking a shade more genuine. "I'll hold you to that next semester, though, you know."

"I know." Justin smiled down into Alex's eyes for a moment, then looked at his watch and sighed. "We need to get going, though. Come on."

The two of them walked to the elevator, holding hands, and Miranda stayed crouched down until they were in the elevator and out of sight.

With the pair of them gone, Miranda stood up again, then came out of the aisle and sat down, trying to sort through her thoughts and feelings. When she'd seen Justin, she'd been really happy, she couldn't deny. It'd been twelve days since she'd caught her boyfriend Peter - _make that _ex-_boyfriend_, she thought, drumming her fingers and twisting her mouth - screwing her roommate. _Bastard._ Justin had always been really sweet, even if he was a little strange and so shy it was almost painful sometimes. She'd been going to give him a call, ask him out, spend a little time with a good guy for a change. But now….

_Was that why he was so shy and weird? Were he and Alex together even then? And what's really going on there? _Miranda bit her lip, frowned. _Aren't most of… _those_ relationships abusive? _Peter had seemed nice - he'd said all right right things, seemed like such a great guy - but he really wasn't. And before him, Jared had been so sweet at first, getting her flowers and candy… and then he'd turned out to be a bastard too, had actually _hit_ her for talking to another guy.

And you couldn't always tell about that kind of thing - a couple might seem nice and normal, but in private, who knew what was happening. One thing was for sure - Alex seemed a lot more subdued than Miranda remembered her being in high school. And what had really happened on those stairs, when Alex had made that scream? Yeah, they _said_ she'd fallen - but "she fell down the stairs" was right up there with "I walked into a door" as excuses went.

On top of that, what was that about her sitting around in his dorm room? Was he keeping her from going to school? Had their parents kicked her out or something? _He'd better not be hurting her. But what can I do? If I call the police, it won't matter whether he's hurting her or not. Them even _being _together is illegal. And I can't talk to their parents - if they did kick her out… a lot of abuse starts with the parents. Did their dad…?_

Miranda stopped that train of thought, not really wanting to think about it_. What was that girl Alex was always hanging out with? _Miranda put her hands on the edge of the table and pushed, rocking up onto two legs as she tried to remember. _Harper… Fine? Fletcher? Something with an F._ Well, if she needed to, she'd get her yearbook out and check. Right now though….

Miranda got up, grabbing her backpack, and strode to the back of the floor, to one of the computers set up for searching the online catalog. Setting her backpack on the floor by her feet, she put her hands on the keyboard, then paused and looked around to make sure no one was looking, suddenly feeling embarrassed even to be typing the word: _incest_.

* * *

"So what the heck is discrete math? Is that math you can't talk about to strangers?" Alex asked as they walked together to the class. She wanted to spend a few more minutes with him after lunch, and that was the best way to do it.

He gave her hand a squeeze. "No - not ee-ee-tee discreet, ee-tee-ee discrete. It's math that deals in discrete quantities. Like integers. It's really the basis for computer math, since computers can't actually represent continuous quant -" He broke off as Alex put her head against his shoulder, closed her eyes, and faked a snore.

Justin rolled his eyes. "Hey, you asked," he said, obviously annoyed. "If you don't want to hear it, don't ask."

"Sorry," she said then. "Look… I may not be interested in math, but I love you. And I'm glad to get to spend time with you, no matter what you're talking about. Okay?"

"You know something?" Justin said.

"What?"

"You are really good at making me feel special. And I love you too." Smiling, Justin went to kiss the top of Alex's head, but she turned her head so they kissed on the lips instead.

"I knew that. Tell me something I didn't know," she said with a smile. Justin opened his mouth, but before he could say anything else, Alex cut in with, "Something _about me_."

"Something about you… that you don't know?" Justin raised an eyebrow, and Alex nodded quickly, grinning.

"Ooookay… hmm." Justin worked his mouth for a moment, thinking as they walked, then nodded. "Got it."

Alex frowned, looking at him. "Got it? You're supposed to tell me it."

Cocking his head to the side, Justin smiled. "Are you sure you want me to say it out here?"

"Oh?" Raising an eyebrow, Alex asked, "Is it something _dirty_?"

Justin waggled his eyebrows in return. "Could be."

"I'll bet you don't have the guts to say it out where people could hear, then." Alex glanced around. The court they were walking across wasn't too busy, but there were other people around, the closest - a brown-haired man with thick glasses - about twenty feet in front of them.

"Only because you'd be too embarrassed if I did," Justin answered, somehow managing to keep a straight face despite a sudden urge to grin.

"Okay, now you _have_ to say it. So spill."

Then Justin did grin. Leaning closer to Alex, he put a hand on her back, slid it up under her scarf, and gripped her firmly by the back of her neck. Suddenly, he stopped, used his other hand to take Alex by her upper arm, turning her to face him, so close they were touching. "What you don't know about you, is that you are making me very, very horny right now." Alex opened her mouth to respond, but Justin released her upper arm, brought his finger to her lips, stopping her. "And tomorrow," he went on, in a normal tone of voice, "you are going to be sore all day from the fucking I'm going to give you tonight."

Alex looked around, turned crimson as she saw two people looking at them - the man who'd been ahead of them, who'd stopped and turned to look back, and a blonde girl sitting on a bench nearby. Both of them looked away when Alex's eyes caught theirs, and she they'd heard what Justin said.

Justin moved his hand beneath Alex's chin then and kissed her hard, pushing his tongue into her mouth. Alex melted into him, wrapping her arms around him, not caring if they were seen - no, _enjoying _it, a tingle of excitement going through her at the thought that other people might be getting a thrill from watching them. She met Justin's tongue with hers, participating fully in the kiss, and pushed herself more firmly against him, smiling as she felt his erection against her through their clothes.

A few moments later, Justin broke off the kiss and stared down at his little sister. "I wish I could take you home right now," he breathed out quietly, brushing Alex's hair from her face with his fingers as he looked at her.

"I see that. Or maybe I should say I feel that," Alex replied just as quietly, grinning up at him. Then she raised her voice, speaking so their audience could hear. "I'm looking forward to it, lover. But you'd better get to class now. I'll see you later." She kissed him quickly, then pulled away, gave him a quick wave, and walked away, still feeling flushed.

_Mmm. I love it when he's like this_, Alex thought, careful not to turn back. _Let 'em stare._


	5. Chapter 5

An hour and a half later, Alex was sitting in the UnderGrounds (_someone needs to beat whoever thought _that_ was a clever name for a basement coffee bar,_ she thought for the fourteenth time), watching people come and go with half her attention as she sipped hot cocoa. She smiled a little as a couple entered together, studying the planes of the guy's face, sketching him - well, mostly his nose, which had an interesting shape to it - quickly. She added his eyes and finished with the quirky smile he'd given his girlfriend from memory, since by then he was at the bar ordering, facing away from her.

The sketch done, she looked from her pad to her cellphone, laying on table beside it, and frowned a little as she saw that the time had finally slipped past three-thirty. _Okay, school's finally out. Time to call. _Twisting her mouth, she picked up the phone in her left hand, flipped her pencil around and poked the little head on the 'contacts' button with the eraser. The list popped up, and she scrolled down to the entry that read 'Lexie', then stopped there, thumb hovering over the green phone button.

Alex took a deep breath, let it out, then pressed the button and lifted the phone to her ear. Three rings later, her own voice answered. "Talk to me."

"Hey, I was thinking about hanging out with Harper," Alex told her duplicate. "You're not doing anything with her, right?"

"Umm... she was asking earlier if I'd go with her to look at fabric," Lexie replied. "If you want to do that, be my guest."

"Fabric? What's she making that she can't do with what she has?"

"She's making a new dress for when Zeke's home from Stanford. She needs more silver, and I don't want to talk about it more than that. I've already listened to three hours about it." Alex smiled at that, hearing the eye-roll in Lexie's voice. _Sure, I'll be glad to listen to it. I actually _miss_ spending time with her, _she didn't say.

What she did say was, "Okay, good. Anything new going on that I need to know about?"

There was a moment's pause before Lexie answered. "She dragged me to Alien Language League last night. It was the usual. The dress is robot-themed, by the way," she added with a sigh. "She showed me drawings, but she'll probably show you again anyway. Oh, and she's planning to give it up to Zeke while he's home."

"Oh and?" Alex said, shaking her head quickly. "_That's _an 'oh and'? Wait," Alex continued after a moment as it sunk in. "You mean they haven't yet? I thought they did it before he left, when he took her to prom?"

"I know! I thought that too! But apparently she got scared at the last minute, and he was all nice and lovey and understanding, and they didn't do it. But she says she's ready now, and really wants to make it special. That, and she's scared to death that some college girl is going to sink her hooks into him."

Alex smiled at that, then frowned, thinking. _If I know Harper's mom, she probably hasn't ever bothered to have 'the talk' with Harper. _"Did you talk to her about...?"

"No, what would _I_ tell her? Remember, I don't have any of those memories. The only thing I could tell her about would be - well, you know."

"Yeah." _About threesomes. While I'd love to see Harper's expression for that... no._ "Well, we should have plenty to talk about then," Alex said, still frowning. _Yeah, plenty all right. I'm a little scared to find out what kind of ideas Harper has about sex. _"Thanks."

"Thank _you_. Ten more minutes about that dress and I was going to scream. Have fun."

"I will. Bye." The call disconnected as Lexie hung up, and Alex looked at the phone for a few moments, then dialed Harper.

* * *

"He's going to be home for three weeks," Harper said, setting bags down on the floor as she and Alex sat down. Having finished at the fabric store, they'd decided to get dinner, and had wound up at a hole-in-the-wall Italian place neither of them had tried before, but whose menu (posted on the window outside) wasn't priced out of their range. "One week before Christmas, and two weeks after," she continued, smiling. "I can't wait for him to get here!"

Alex smiled back as she sat, thinking while Harper gave the waiter her drink order. _Christmas... that's four weeks away now. I need to find something good to get for Justin. _Then it was her turn to order a drink (hot tea, after being out in the cold). She let her friend go on while they looked over the menu and waited for their drinks, half-listening while she thought about how to bring up the topic of sex. _I'll just go for it. It's what I do best anyway._

Harper was feeling picky, so her order took a minute. Alex, on the other hand, was happy to have anything that wasn't a sandwich or a salad - between eating at the Sub Station on her shifts there and trying to stretch Justin's limited money supply to feed both of them the rest of the time, she'd been eating a _lot_ of sandwiches and salads lately. Once the waiter had wandered off, Alex took a good look at her friend, then blinked, realizing for the first time that afternoon that Harper was dressed in normally. _Cutely_, even, in a dark blue sweater patterned with falling snow, snowman earrings, a blue beret, and bracelets with little snowmen, snowballs, and what were probably supposed to be ice crystals.

"I like your outfit. Did you make that?"

"You do?" Harper smiled. "Thanks! I made the earrings and the bracelets. I'm trying to be more subtle."

"It's working really well. It's cute on you." Alex reached and gave Harper's hand a little squeeze, smiled at her. "Keep it up."

_Okay, _Alex thought. _Here goes._ "So," she said, dropping her voice a bit so the neighboring tables wouldn't overhear, "you're going to go for it with Zeke while he's here?"

Harper nodded. "Yeah, I think so. I think I'm ready. We've really gotten closer while he's been gone, with all the texts and emails, and talking on the phone... I love him. And he really loves me."

"Good. I'm really happy for you," Alex replied. "Did your mom ever, uhh... have the talk with you?"

"Umm... no, not really." Harper blushed a little, then said quickly, "but I think I know what to expect."

Looking into Harper's eyes, Alex asked, "Are you scared?"

"No." Harper shook her head. "I've... I've been kind of thinking about it a lot. I trust Zeke... I think more than I've ever trusted any guy. I think he's the one for me."

Alex squeezed Harper's hand again, smiled at her. "Good. You shouldn't be scared. Nervous, maybe - I know I was my first time. But I wasn't scared at all."

Harper blushed a little again, but didn't say anything. Feeling the need to say more, Alex went on. "It did hurt some, but it was okay - I wanted it so much. Just wanted to be his, and him to be mine, completely. I'm sure it'll be good for you like that too. I know you really love Zeke."

It was then that Harper suddenly frowned, then blinked. "Alex?" she said, looking at her friend curiously, "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"Really?" Harper's frown had grown, and her eyes narrowed a bit. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure," Alex answered, giving another squeeze with her hand. "You're like my sister, Harper. You know that. Ask me anything."

"Well... you haven't had a boyfriend since you broke up with Dean, and I know you didn't do it with him. So... who have you been with, and why haven't you told me?"

_Oh,_ Alex thought. _Oh shit. _"Uhh... just a second..." Alex reached down into her boot, pulled out her wand and started to wave it, saying "_McReary -"_, but Harper shot her hand forward and grabbed it, yanked it out of Alex's hand before she could finish the spell.

"Alex!" Harper hissed low, glancing around at the other patrons of the restaurant. Thankfully, no one seemed to have noticed. "I can't believe you're trying to cast a spell on me! What the hell is going on?"

_Oh no. Oh God no. _Alex blinked at her friend, biting her lip. "Alex," Harper said, "don't make me use the look. I don't want to, but I will." She stared at Alex for a moment, kept staring as she took Alex's wand and put it into her shopping bag, out of reach.

"You just said I could ask you _anything,_" Harper said then. "And you know you can trust me. So _what's wrong?_" She waited two seconds, three, and Alex still didn't answer. "All right. I'm going then," Harper said, and started to stand. Immediately, Alex reached for her hand again, grabbed it.

"Wait," she said. "I... I..." Suddenly, Alex started to cry, and Harper blinked again, all the anger vanishing from her face as she sat back down and took Alex's hand in both of hers.

"It's okay... Alex. Talk to me. Tell me what's wrong. I'm sorry I got mad at you, but... you're still my best friend. I want to help you. But I can't if I don't know what's wrong."

Alex's eyes were still closed, screwed shut tightly, and she clung to Harper's hand so tightly her knuckles were white, but she nodded. "I... don't hate me. _Please_ don't hate me."

"I'm not going to hate you. You're my best friend. You've been my best friend since kindergarten. Sometimes you've been my _only_ friend. I know you, Alex. Sometimes you're thoughtless. Sometimes you're selfish. But you'd never really _hurt_ anyone. Not on purpose."

"I… I know. I know, Harper. But… this is…." Alex stopped, took a couple of breaths to get her voice under control, then opened her eyes and looked at Harper. "You can't tell anyone. I really mean that - not even Zeke. Promise me."

Harper moved her hand, linked her pinkie finger with Alex's. "I promise. Pinkie swear. Okay?"

Alex nodded, swallowed, took a breath, then let it out in a rush. "It's Justin," she said, still looking into Harper's eyes.

Harper blinked at Alex, then frowned. "What?" She shook her head quickly, then said, "Can you say that again? Because it sounded like you said, 'It's Justin,' and I know that can't be right."


	6. Chapter 6

"Yes, that's right," Alex said, closing her eyes tightly again, keeping her hand gripped on Harper's. _If I don't let go, she can't leave._ "And yes, I mean _that_ Justin. Justin Vincenzae Pepe Russo, my brother."

Alex kept her eyes closed, waiting for Harper to say something, but the silence stretched on until Alex finally opened one eye to see Harper staring at her, mouth agape. Swallowing, Alex opened her other eye. "I know, I know, it's -"

"Your _brother_," Harper said, interrupting. "You're _dating_ your brother. Oh my God, you _had sex _with your brother_!_ Alex, this is - it's -"

"I know," Alex said, her voice miserable. "But I love him. I..." She stopped, shook her head, swallowed again. Harper opened her mouth to speak, but Alex spoke first. "Please, just listen for a minute. I know it's strange, but - he's always been more than just a brother to me. I mean, I love Max, but... it's not the same. With Justin it's like we're two halves of a whole. We're not _complete _without each other. I can't imagine living without him, and I know he feels the same way about me. We _belong_ together."

Harper stared at her friend for a moment, took in a deep breath, then said, "I... Oh my God, Alex. This is just... I don't know what to say. It's still sinking in - it's so hard to believe."

Alex bit her lip, quirked one side of her mouth. "I can understand that. It took me a lot of time to believe it too, when it first happened. Just... just say you don't hate me, okay? Please?"

"I don't hate you. I'm worried about you, and I'm shocked, and... and honestly, I am _mad_ at you, but I don't _hate _you." Harper paused and took a breath, then almost jumped in her chair as the waiter set her glass in front of her. Both girls watched in silence as he placed down Alex's drink as well, then a basket of breadsticks between the two of them, then two plates, stacked together.

"Your food should be out shortly," he said. "Is there anything else I can get you?"

"No, thank you," Harper and Alex both said simultaneously. The waiter nodded to them in response, and they both stared at him until he was a good halfway across the restaurant. Harper turned back to Alex and spoke. "Okay, so... how long have you two...?"

"A year and a half," Alex replied. "It started right after Dean and I broke up."

"Is that why you broke up?" Harper's expression was unreadable, but there wasn't anything else Alex could do but go on being honest - it was too late for anything else.

"No. I - I wound up casting a truth spell on Dean, never mind why, and found out he's gay."

"Wait - Dean's _gay_?" Harper blinked, then let out a quick laugh. "Oh. And to think I spent all that time worrying that he was going to do something to you." She shook her head, then gave Alex a sour look. "I guess I was worried about completely the wrong guy."

"No, it… I'm the one who started it. Not Justin. I… I _made_ him do it. Our parents were out of town, and… I told him I loved him… like that. He said we couldn't, that it was wrong. So… I used magic to make him think I was his girlfriend, not his sister. I thought maybe I could do it once, get it out of my system. But I was wrong. I… I love him, Harper. I really do. And he loves me."

"Alex… you used a spell to make him do it?" Alex nodded, and Harper frowned deeply. "That's so _wrong_, Alex. You can't _make_ him love you. You have to know that's not right."

"No, no!" Alex shook her head quickly. "It's not like that! I used magic that once - a genie, not a spell - and I made him forget about it too. But… the forgetting part wore off. And when he remembered, he… he told me he knew what I'd done. And I was so scared, Harper. I was sure he was going to tell Mom and Dad, and they'd send me away somewhere. But he didn't." A smile lit Alex's face at the memory, and she went on, "He loved me too. He _loves_ me too. Without any magic."

Harper let out a sigh, still frowning, then shook her head. "Even if you're not forcing him, it's still wrong, Alex. He's your _brother._ It's _illegal_. What are you going to do? You can't get married. If anyone finds out, you'll be in _jail_. Or more likely Justin will, since he's an adult, and you're still seventeen!"

"You… you promised you wouldn't tell." _Oh please please please…._

_"Alex!"_ Harper smacked the table. Several people looked, including the greeter, who kept looking, obviously wondering if he was going to have to kick the two of them out. "It wasn't fair, to make me promise like that before I knew what it was," Harper hissed, dropping her voice back to a private conversation level, and the greeter looked away. She shook her head quickly, reached down to grab the handle of her shopping bag. "I don't know what I'm going to do yet. This is… this is too big. I don't want to see you or Justin in jail, but… you've got to realize this is _wrong_. This isn't like one of your little pranks! Think about your parents - think about _Max_. You can't keep doing this!"

She pulled Alex's wand from where she'd stuck it in the shopping bag and put it on the table, then stood up. "I'm sorry, Alex. I'm not going to tell anyone, but… we need to talk about this more. And I'm really mad at you right now, and I need to not be mad to have this conversation."

Alex's stomach felt like it was full of lead as Harper opened her purse, pulled out five dollars, laid it on the table for her drink, then walked toward their waiter without another word. Staring down at the table, Alex heard Harper saying, "I'm sorry, but can you please cancel my order? I have to go."

"Of course," he replied, glancing at Alex. "What about your friend?"

"I don't know - you'll need to ask her. Thank you."

"You're welcome," he said, glancing back to Harper automatically. She turned to leave, and the waiter looked back at the table, then blinked in surprise to see the black-haired girl had vanished.

* * *

"Hey," Justin said, looking up at Alex and smiling as she appeared in their room. "That was quick. I though you said you were going to have dinner with Harper when you texted me?"

"We changed our minds," Alex said, swallowing and hoping her eyes weren't too puffy. She'd teleported into the girls' bathroom at their old school, knowing it would be empty at this hour, and spent a good ten minutes crying there, then another ten cleaning herself up and putting fresh makeup on before she'd felt like she could go home and pretend nothing had happened. "We just got drinks, and split a dessert." _Split a dessert. It's the new euphemism for _'had a fight'. _Yeah._

"Well, I'm glad you're home." Justin stood up from his desk chair, stepped over to Alex and wrapped his arms around her, hugging her close. "I missed you."

Letting her head rest against his shoulder, Alex closed her eyes. "I missed you too. I love you, Justin."

"I love you too, Alex. Always and forever."

Alex smiled and tightened her eyes. _Don't start crying. If you do, he's going to ask what's wrong._ She stayed against him, and after a few moments Justin started to kiss the top of head, stroking his fingers through her hair. Alex breathed in deeply, taking the breath slowly so Justin wouldn't notice it, then let it out slowly as well, trying to relax.

_There's nothing I can do about Harper right now. And there's no point in telling Justin before I know how she's really reacting,_ Alex told herself. _So I'm not going to think about that at all. _She tilted her head up, rose up on the balls of her feet, and kissed her brother, moving her arms so her forearms went up his back, hands on his shoulders, pulling herself tightly against him. He pulled at her lower lip, sucked on it lightly, and Alex pressed against Justin harder, began to grind her hips against him.

His hands moved across her back, down to her butt, and Justin began to rock his hips, pulling her against him in time with the motion. "I've been horny since you teased me on the walk to class," he whispered into her ear. "I want you so bad."

Turning her head, Alex licked Justin's neck, rose up to take his earlobe in her teeth, just barely applying pressure. "That's too bad," she whispered. "I don't think I'm going to let you. I'm just going to tease you..."

"Oh, are you now?" Justin moved his left hand from his sister's ass, glided it across the soft cloth of her top, briefly cupped her breast on the way to her scarf, which he began to unwind from her neck. "You can try that... but you're getting fucked tonight Alex. Even if I have to tie you to the bed and make you take it."

She pulled away from him then, eyes twinkling as she smiled, letting the scarf slide off her as she moved. "You'd have to undress me to do that. You got my scarf, but you're not getting anything else." Justin moved after Alex, dropping her scarf onto his desk, circling out to try to get her cornered with the wall and their bed. Backing into the corner, Alex let her smile drop, faking a nervous look for Justin - then ducked down and moved forward, trying to get past him, but not going nearly as fast as she could.

Justin's hand shot out and grabbed Alex by her upper arm, and then his other hand was on the back of her sweater, grabbing a handful of the purple material. He pulled to the side, toward the wall, and Alex put both hands out, let him push her against it, smiled as her brother pinned her against the faded plaster with his body. "I've got you now," he said, wrapping his right arm around her, just under her breasts, his hand turned up to cup the side of one.

Alex pretended to struggle against him, making just enough of an effort that Justin had to actually apply a little force to keep her there - and in the process squirming against his erection, which she could feel quite easily through their clothes. "You still haven't gotten any more clothes off me," she teased, then let out an "Oh!" as Justin grabbed her sweater at the waist and pulled up, exposing her front. His other hand slid onto her breast, kneaded it through her bra. "Doesn't count," she said in a teasing sing-song. "You didn't get it off me."

His hand moved down, and Justin hooked a thumb under the bottom edge of Alex's bra and pulled it up, freeing her left breast. He cupped it again, skin on skin this time, then slid his fingers across it, letting them pull lightly at her nipple, then repeated the motion, kept repeating it as he moved his mouth to her neck and began to kiss and nip there.

A moan escaped Alex's lips, but she got it under control, then grinned. "It's still not off me, Justin," she teased again.

"Oh, I'll take it off you when I want it off you," he breathed into her ear, then took his hand from her breast, pulled up his sister's skirt, found the waistband of her leggings. "Right now, though, these are more in the way," he said, and pulled them down quickly. The cotton of the leggings caught against that of Alex's panties, and his motion left her bare under her skirt, leggings and panties both around her knees.

Justin's hand moved between Alex's legs, and she shifted, bringing her thighs together to block his access. "No... you can't have that..."

"Spread your legs, Alex," Justin said, his voice low, almost growling.

"Uh-uh," she said, keeping them together. "You can't make - oh!" She cut off as Justin's hand smacked against her ass cheek. A moment later, he spanked her again.

"Spread your legs," he repeated, but Alex shook her head no, then gasped again at the next smack. Justin's hand lingered this time, stroking the smooth skin of Alex's butt, then lifted quickly and spanked her a fourth time. A shiver ran through Alex's body and she made a strangled-sounding moan. Justin grinned, knowing from experience what that moan meant, and smacked Alex's ass again, then twice more in quick succession.

Alex trembled and felt like her knees were going to buckle as she came, moaning again. Justin brought a hand up to his sister's chin and turned her head, leaning over her to kiss her like that, pushing his tongue into her warm, waiting mouth even as his other hand was quickly unbuckling his belt. He held the kiss until he'd managed to free his erection, then broke it and shifted his hips downward.

This time, he simply put his hands between Alex's legs and pushed, and she cooperated, spreading them willingly. His hands moved away, and Alex frowned as nothing else happened for a moment, then turned her head to see Justin stretching one hand back toward his desk, trying to reach the drawer by the bed where the condoms were without moving. "It's okay," she said quickly. "You don't need that right now."

Immediately, he moved to her entrance, pressed forward until his little sister's body complied, letting him in. Then he stopped, holding there, just barely in her. Alex arched and tried to push herself onto him, but Justin put his hands on her hips, holding her back.

"Tell me you want it, Alex."

"Ohh... I want you, Justin. I want you in me. Please."

He moved one hand off her hip, glided it across her back, sliding up under he sweater Alex was still wearing until he found the clasp of her bra. It took a moment to release it with just one hand, but Justin managed it, then slid his hand to the side, around the curve of her torso, onto her breast. Squeezing it, he said, "Say, 'please fuck me, sir.'"

Alex swallowed. "Puh... please fuck me, sir."

"Good girl," Justin replied, and pushed forward into her, pulling her back against himself with both hands, driving all the way into Alex. Another moan escaped her as Justin began to take her with quick, deep strokes.

He pulled out after only a minute or so, and Alex turned her head to look at him, frowning. "What," she started to say, but Justin's hands came up and lifted her sweater up, pulling it off before she could get the question out. Alex raised her arms to help, then took off her bra as Justin finished removing his own pants and stripped off his t-shirt.

Then Justin took Alex's waist and pulled her to the bed, sat her down there and crouched to take off her boots. Once those were off, her leggings were next, quickly added to the pile of their clothes on the floor, leaving both of them naked. Justin crawled onto the bed, pushed his sister down onto her back, and moved between her open legs. He slid in easily this time and began to stroke in and out of her, his face a few inches above Alex's, his grey-green eyes smiling down into her chocolate brown orbs.

It wasn't as intense as their coupling against the wall, but Alex didn't mind as she looked up at Justin, taking in the way he looked down at her, like she was the only thing in the world that mattered to him at that moment. Justin brought his hand up, ran his fingers through Alex's silky black hair. "I love you," he said then, and Alex smiled in return and lifted her head up to kiss him.

His hand moved behind her head then, holding her in the kiss, and they played with each other's lips, Justin's strokes slowing but not entirely stopping as he concentrated on the kiss. When they broke it, both spoke at once, Alex saying, "I love you too," as Justin repeated his "I love you."

Alex giggled at that, and Justin smiled, then shifted his head to the side and kissed at the juncture of Alex's neck and jaw, just in front of her ear. He shifted and kissed lower down on her neck, then back up to kiss her cheekbone, whispering, "I love you, Alex," as he moved.

She smiled, feeling warm, secure, and loved, enjoying the sensations of their slower lovemaking just as much as she'd enjoyed their play-fight before. They went on like that for several minutes before Justin pulled out of her again, then stood up off the bed. Taking Alex by the hips, he pulled her to the edge of it, grinning, then ran his hands up and down her body and bent over her, brining his mouth down onto her right breast, his hand cupping it and pushing in and up, shaping it into a cone with her nipple at the tip.

Justin began to lick her breast like an ice cream cone, spiraling long strokes around her nipple, slowly approaching it, then suddenly taking it into his mouth and sucking with an intensity that sent shivers through Alex. She stroked his back in return, running her nails across his skin with a touch so light it almost tickled, then again, harder. He switched to her other breast, repeating what he'd done before, but reaching a hand between Alex's legs as he did, pressing the part of his palm just below the index finger against her and rubbing in circles.

Alex undulated slowly under Justin as waves of pleasure spread from between her legs, then mewled like a kitten as Justin sucked her nipple. He kept going until her sounds and shivering abated, then broke the suction and rose up again, smiling down at her. His hands moved to Alex's hips, turned her over, then pulled her up onto her knees. Justin pushed into her for the third time, sliding in fully and holding there as he leaned forward across Alex's back and brushed her hair aside, caressed his fading mark on the back of her neck.

"No," Alex said then, and Justin frowned, but she continued before he could ask anything. "I want it where people can see it, this time. Put it on my shoulder. Please."

"Are you sure?" Justin asked, stroking his sister's back, and she nodded. "Yes. We don't have to keep it hidden any more, like we did before. And I can cover it with a scarf right now if I need to. Put it there." She leaned over a little to support herself on one arm, using the other hand to touch her shoulder just below where it rose up to her neck.

Justin bent over Alex again and kissed her in the spot she'd touched, then nipped it, working the flesh between his teeth. He broke off as Alex gasped, asked, "Was that too hard?"

She shook her head quickly. "No - it hurts a little, but it's good."

"Okay," Justin said, stretching forward a little to kiss Alex's earlobe, then going back to her shoulder, nipping there again, following it with a sucking kiss. After a few seconds, he nipped her again, then finished with a gentle kiss on the spot.

It hurt more than Alex expected, but as Justin stood back up and began to move in her again, she forgot about it after a few seconds, moaning and shivering as he took her with hard, fast strokes, one hand on her left shoulder to brace her against his thrusts, the other cupping her breast. Justin's hand tightened on Alex's shoulder and he changed his rhythm, alternating harder and softer strokes, and Alex smiled, knowing he was getting close.

Sure enough, a few moments later Justin moaned and began to really pound into Alex. Little twinges of pleasure shot through her as he did, and then he made a strangled cry, slowed, then stopped. Justin bent over Alex, wrapping an arm around her and kissing all along one side of her face, and she closed her eyes, enjoying the closeness, finding herself feeling very clingy after what had happened with Harper.

Then Justin stood back up and withdrew from her, and Alex, still feeling very needy, pushed herself up onto her knees and turned around to try to hug him - at the same moment that Justin stepped away from the bed to pick up their clothes from the floor. Expecting to grab onto Justin for support but not finding him there, Alex let out a loud "Oh!" and fell forward off the bed. Justin grabbed for her and managed to get a hold on her left arm, but it wasn't enough, and Alex fell face-first onto the tile floor, coming down hard on the right side of her face.

Alex came the rest of the way off the bed as she curled into a fetal position as she let out a prolonged "owwwwww..." Sitting down on the floor, Justin pulled her into his lap and brought his hand up to the side of her face. Automatically, Alex raised a hand to try to keep him from touching it, and Justin took her wrist gently, moved her arm aside.

"I'm going to see if anything's broken," he said, and Alex lowered her hand and tried not to wince as Justin gently probed the side of her face with his fingers. "Nothing's broken, but you're probably going to have a nasty bruise there," he said, moving his arms under Alex and lifting her back onto the bed as he did. "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault - it was just an accident," Alex said. Justin started to move away, but she caught him by the wrist. "Stay here... please."

Justin looked at his little sister, glided his fingertips along her arm. "I'm just going to make you an ice pack to put on there, see if we can keep it from bruising up too badly. Okay?"

Nodding, Alex said, "Okay," then watched as Justin opened the drawer where the towels were, took out a washcloth, then opened the mini-fridge and scooped ice onto it, wrapped it up, opened another drawer and took out one of Alex's rubber hair bands, twisted it onto the makeshift ice pack. Stepping back over to Alex, he gingerly placed it against the side of her face and held it there, looking at Alex with a visible concern that made her feel warm and fuzzy even with her face hurting. After a second, Justin's eyes flicked down along her naked body, and he stood, moving carefully so he didn't move the ice pack, grabbed the far edge of the blanket, and pulled it across to wrap over her.

He sat back down, and Alex looked at him. "Aren't you going to get cold like that?"

"I'll be okay. We just need to keep this on you for about twenty minutes." Justin smiled at her and continued, saying, "That'll keep the bruising down. And I'll get some arnica gel for you - that'll help heal it, and relieve the pain."

Alex smiled just a little, looking into Justin's eyes, then reached a hand out from under the covers and squeezed his shoulder. "You are the best boyfriend ever."

Justin smiled back and raised his free hand to brush at a few stray strands of Alex's hair. "With you, it's easy. I love you, Alex."

* * *

**Quick Notes: **I think this may be the longest chapter I've written. I usually wind up breaking the sex scenes across two chapters, but decided I didn't want to for this one... so enjoy your double-length chapter!

Also, I'm going to be doing a quick Halloween one-shot before the next chapter of this. Look for it going up tonight or tomorrow - don't know the title yet.


	7. Chapter 7

That night, Alex lay on her left side, feeling muzzy-headed as she tried to relax and get to sleep. Unfortunately, the combination of the slowly throbbing right side of her face and sleeping on the wrong side (so that aching area wouldn't be against the pillow) conspired against her.

So it was that Alex didn't fall asleep until sometime around four in the morning, slept through the alarm, and didn't stir at all as Justin got out of bed, left for his shower, came back, dressed, and readied for his day. Before leaving, he took a moment to check on his sister, was pleased to see that she seemed to be sleeping solidly. _Damn that looks nasty_, he thought, frowning at the bruise that had developed. It was most intense on her cheekbone, where it was a purplish blue, faded a bit across her temple, then darkened again above it, just below Alex's hairline.

He knew it wasn't really as bad as it looked - the face has a lot of small blood vessels, and thus tends to bruise colorfully, but bruises there also tend to heal quickly - but Justin hated to see Alex in any kind of pain, and he knew that had to hurt. _Well... I'll do what I can here,_ he thought, and set about making a few preparations before he had to go.

Alex awoke around eleven, dragged slowly from sleep by the combination of the light coming through the window and the continuing ache of her face. It took her a few moments to realize that something was pressed against her back, another few to realize that Justin had stuffed pillows into the bed behind her to keep her from automatically turning over onto her accustomed right side. Alex smiled a little at that, then turned and sat up in bed, rubbed sleep-dirt from her eyes, took a second to adjust Justin's t-shirt that she'd slept in.

She blinked the blurriness from her eyes, then frowned, seeing a note hanging from the side of the desk by her, held in place by a mug. Lifting the mug for a moment, she pulled the note out from under it, read it quickly.

_Alex,_

_I hope your face is feeling better. I've put Tylenol out on the desk, and there's an ice pack made up for you in the freezer. The mug is hot cocoa - just put in milk, stir it up, and microwave it for one minute. There's cookies for breakfast too._

Raising her eyebrows at that, Alex craned her head up to look at the top of the desk, smiled to see the four chocolate-chip cookies on a plate - covered with plastic wrap, of course. The TV remote was beside it as well, she noted, both in easy reach. Easing back down, she read on.

_Don't worry about trying to do anything - just stay in bed and rest today. I'll be home at 1:30 with lunch. I'll have the arnica gel. All my love,_

_Justin_

Alex rolled her eyes at that, but smiled as well. _Justin is _such _a mother hen. He'd be a great dad, and... oh my God, where did that thought come from?_ A sudden mental image bubbled up in Alex's imagination, of a smiling Justin holding a blanket-wrapped baby, fingers waving in front of a tiny face, little green eyes that matched his looking up at him, the head crowned with curly black hair...

A sick sensation rolled through Alex's stomach, and she quashed mercilessly both the thought and the sudden urge to cry as she stood up out of bed. _No. I am not thinking about this right now._ She swung her legs out of bed, took a second to slide her feet into her fuzzy slippers as she remembered how cold the tile had been the last two weeks, then stumbled across the room to the sink and mirror, turned the spigot, splashed cold water onto her face, and immediately winced as it turned out to be near-freezing rather than just cold. Grabbing the towel that hung on the hook by the sink, she buried her face in it and suppressed another wince as it touched the bruised part of her face. Alex let out a low moan of pain, then half-jumped as someone knocked on the door.

The towel slipped from her hand and fell onto the floor as Alex grabbed onto the sink to steady herself, then sucked in a breath through her teeth at the cold of porcelain-coated metal against her hands. _Be quiet. They should go away if they don't think anyone's here. If the door opens, teleport out. Yeah,_ she thought then, looking down at herself, clad in Justin's Tears of Blood t-shirt (which, while it came below her butt, just barely did so), her panties, and fuzzy slippers. _And where can I go dressed like this? And where's my wand anyway?_

"Alex," a feminine voice called through the door, "I know you're in there. Please open up."

_Oh, thank you God. It must be Gina_, Alex thought, remembering the girl from Justin's calculus class she'd befriended. _She's the only one who knows I sleep over here - well, besides Lexie, and she wouldn't be knocking. _ "Just a second," she called back, picking up the towel and placing it back on the hook, then giving the room a quick glance-over to make sure nothing magical or embarrassing was sitting out. Seeing nothing, Alex opened the door, putting on a smile that immediately dropped as she saw Miranda standing there.

"What are you doing -" Alex started, but was cut off as Miranda's eyes went wide.

"Oh... Alex, are you okay?" she asked, eyes taking in the purple bruise on the right side of the younger girl's face.

"I'm fine, but what -" Miranda stepped forward and hugged Alex, going up on tiptoe to do it since Alex was a little taller.

Surprised, Alex held her arms out away from Miranda, and it took a second before she got out, "Uh… personal space - feeling a little violated here!"

"Oh!" Miranda let go and stepped back again. "I'm sorry, it's just..." Pausing, she glanced up and down the hallway. "Can I come in and talk to you?"

"I'd really rather you didn't," Alex said, and started to close the door. "So, bye. Have a nice life."

Miranda thrust her foot into the door, stopping it. "Look - I know you're living here. And I know you and Justin are together," she said, dropping her voice. "I saw you two kiss in the library. I heard Justin talk about you sitting around in his room, so I know you're not going to school." She paused, looked Alex up and down. "And judging by the way you're dressed, I'd guess you're living here in the dorm. So… do you let me in so we can talk, or do I talk to campus housing instead?"

Alex opened her mouth for a sarcastic retort, then snapped it close as the words _talk to campus housing_ penetrated. Instead, she let out a frustrated "Ohh" as she lifted a hand to her face and closed her eyes for a moment, then nodded sharply, not looking at Miranda. "Okay. Come on in, then. Have a seat. Can I get you anything?" Alex asked, sarcasm slowly infusing her voice. "Tea? Cocoa? A Coke? A sense of where your nose ends and other people's business begins?"

Turning sideways to move through the half-open door, Miranda ignored the jibe. "What happened to your face?"

"This?" Alex gestured at the bruise. "Oh, it's the latest thing," she continued, her voice dripping sarcasm. "You remember heroin chic? This is abuse chic."

Miranda blanched a little at that, stopping just inside the door and turning to face the younger girl. "Oh, Alex, sweetie," she said, taking Alex's hands in hers. "Tell me what happened." Alex blinked at her, and Miranda went on. "It's okay. It's not your fault. He may try to make it seem like it is, but…" Miranda stopped, blinking at Alex's right shoulder, where Justin's t-shirt had slid to the side. "Is that a _bite?_"

"What? Yes, but -"

"Oh… oh, sweetie." Miranda stepped forward and hugged Alex again, and Alex tensed, lifting her arms out again.

"Okay, Miranda - please stop with hugging. And please don't call me sweetie - it's a little creepy."

"Oh - I'm sorry." Miranda let go and took a step back. _What did the book say? Oh, right - be patient and understanding, and let them know they're not to blame._ _Okay. Just keep calm. _"I'm here for you. Whatever you want to say, I'll listen. None of this is your fault."

"My fault? Wait..." Alex shook her head, then looked back at Miranda. "You think Justin's _abusing_ me? That was a _joke_, Miranda."

Miranda swallowed. She'd known that there was a good chance that Alex would deny it, but she'd really been hoping she wouldn't. This wasn't going to be easy. "Alex," she said, "I don't know what happened. Only you and Justin do. But… you don't deserve to be hit. And you shouldn't be kept out of school, or kept… cooped up here."

"Okay, look." Alex raised both her hands up in front of her, realized that might look defensive, dropped them back down… and then was unsure what to do with them. _Okay, find something to do so you don't look nervous. Even if you are. Stall._ "I'm not really comfortable dressed like this. Give me a second here."

"Sure," Miranda said, moving over to the desk and looking out the window. While she did that, Alex opened the closet, pulled Justin's clothes to the left to loosen her things that were in there, took out her robe and put it on, belted it while she thought.

_Okay. Goth girl thinks I'm being abused. Just great. And she's probably seen too many after-school specials, and is going to think that if I'm denying it, then I'm in denial, or too scared of Justin to talk. So what the hell do I do?_

She paused, hoping some plan would spring into mind, but nothing did. _Okay, so I guess I'll just have to make this up as I go along. Well, that's what I'm best at, right?_ She turned back around, said, "Look, Miranda - I appreciate that you're trying to help me. But this really isn't what you think it is." Alex crossed the room, sat down on the edge of the bed, patted the spot beside her. Miranda sat, but not there, instead pulling out the desk chair and sitting on it, facing Alex.

"Then tell me what it is. Please." Miranda started to give Alex a small smile, wanting to show that she was here as a friend, but it felt too fragile on her face, and she let it go.

"It's -" _None of your damn business._ Alex stopped, took a breath and let it out, started again. "Yes, we're together," she said, and even through the current of anger she was feeling at being ambushed like this, it felt good to say it. Even - no, _especially_ to an ex-girlfriend of Justin's. "Yes, I'm living here. But he's not keeping me here - I can go out when I want. Just… we kind of have to watch our money right now. His scholarships and grants and all that aren't meant for two people to live on, you know?"

Miranda frowned a little. That made sense, but…. "And your mom and dad - they aren't supporting you?"

_Oh, hell. Now she'll be trying to get _them _into trouble. If I knew where my wand was, I swear she'd be a guinea pig right now!_

"No, but… that's our choice. Justin's and mine. I don't want you to talk to them, or try to involve them in any way. Okay?"

"All right." Miranda nodded, swallowing. _Family is sensitive subject. I should have expected that. Keep a grip on yourself, Miranda. _ "I understand." Alex didn't say anything else, and Miranda bit her lip. _Don't let her shut down. Keep her talking._

"So… what happened to your face and shoulder?" she asked, trying to keep her expression neutral.

Alex rolled her eyes and sighed. "My face - I fell out of bed. I know, I know - oldest and lamest excuse ever. But it really did happen."

"Okay," Miranda said, looking sympathetic, her tone level and understanding - and carrying an obvious lack of belief that made Alex want to hit her. "And your shoulder?"

Alex took a deep breath, then gave Miranda a level look that wasn't quite a glare. "Honestly - I don't really feel like discussing Justin's and my _sex life_ with his ex-girlfriend."

Miranda blinked at that, then turned pink. "Oh, so that's a -"

"Yes," Alex said, throwing up her hands. "_Yes!_" she repeated, standing up off the bed as she let her anger at Miranda out in a verbal explosion. "Now is the third _fucking_ degree _over_ yet? Because _really_, Miranda, if anything _were_ happening, and I _was_ looking for someone to talk to, it wouldn't be _you_! _Fuck!_ You think just because you're Justin's ex you can walk in here and start questioning me about him? Or do you think I'm too young and stupid to know what the hell I'm doing? Because honestly, I'm sick and tired of people -"

Alex cut off suddenly as she saw the tears already streaming down Miranda's face, saw how she stood up suddenly, stepping away as she did so, in such a hurry that she knocked the chair over as she went. She looked afraid - no, _terrified_, and that look doused Alex's anger like a bucket of water on a fire.

"I'm sorry," Miranda half-sobbed, her voice cracking. "I'm sorry, I just... I thought I could be calm, and try to help, but..." She shook her head quickly, and turned away, putting her face into her hands. "That's just how my dad used to yell, and..."

"Oh God, Miranda… oh…." Alex crossed to the older girl, threw her arms around her and hugged her tightly from behind. "No, don't you be sorry. I'm sorry," she said quietly into Miranda's ear. "It's okay. It's okay."


	8. Chapter 8

Five minutes later, Alex and Miranda were both sitting cross-legged on the bed, Alex cradling her cocoa in her hands, Miranda stirring sugar into hot tea.

"So... your dad, huh? I'm sorry." Alex reached and put a hand on Miranda's knee for a moment.

Miranda made an expression somewhere between a smile and a grimace. "Yeah. It's kind of the reason that I picked psych. To try to help people going through the same thing." Her expression turned into more of a grimace as she said, "I sure did a great job here, didn't I?"

She shook her head and ran her finger around the rim of her cup, waiting for the tea to cool. "He was nice most of the time. But sometimes he'd come home drunk, and then we'd all tiptoe around, trying not to get him mad. But it didn't matter. I guess he only went drinking when he was already mad about something. So he'd get mad at Mom or one of us - usually Mom, though - and get... violent."

"So, he beat you?" Alex lifted her cocoa and took a sip, looking over the rim at Miranda.

"Well, not me, so much. He hit me a few times. Mom was the one he beat on. I remember... she used to not want to let us see her naked. But one time, when I was ten, I saw her getting out of the shower, and... she was bruised all over, but in places where it wouldn't show when she was dressed. A couple of times she got her face bruised, but she'd always try to explain it away - say she fell or something like that."

Miranda lifted her cup, took a swallow of tea, then set it back down, her eyes staying on the bed all the while, not meeting Alex's. "He started getting really crazy with Isabelle - my older sister - when she was fourteen. He'd scream things at her sometimes. About hanging around with boys. He'd call her a whore, stuff like that. She ran away once, when I was eleven, but the police found her and brought her back."

She stopped then, still staring down at the bed, looking like she might cry at any moment. Alex put her hand back on Miranda's knee, squeezed it. "So when did you get out?"

"We left when I was thirteen. Isabelle was seventeen then, and she was hanging out away from home a lot, staying away from Dad as much as she could. She and Mom fought a lot about it, too. I came home from school one day, and Dad was already home, and he was drinking - there were beer bottles all over the living room. I don't know what happened, why he wasn't at work, but he must have been there for hours. I came in, and he looked at me, and..."

Miranda stopped again, took in a long, shuddery breath. Alex squeezed her knee again, watching the older girl with concern. "If you don't want to talk about it, it's okay. You don't have to."

"No - it... it helps, getting it out." Miranda's left hand moved onto Alex's where is lay on her knee and grasped it as she smiled at Alex. "Thank you," she said, then paused a moment before resuming. "He got up and came over to me, and said that I was turning into a really pretty girl. Prettier than my sister, or my mom. And then he said that he wanted to see my breasts. Well, that's not how he said it, but..." Miranda shrugged, her mouth twisting to one side as she did.

"Anyway," she continued, "I kind of freaked. I ran and locked myself in my room, and he started beating on the door and yelling at me, telling me if I didn't open it , he was going to beat me black and blue."

Miranda closed her eyes for a moment, forcing tears out of them to run down her cheeks, and swallowed visibly. Alex squeezed her hand again, wondering how she would've handled it if something like that had happened to her. _I don't really know_, she thought. _I can't imagine Dad doing anything like that. Heck, he almost never even drinks._ Aloud, she said, "Did he...?"

"Rape me? Yes. He broke down the door, and hit me, and... and I don't really want to talk about the details there. It hurt a lot. He went back out to the living room and drank more, and I just curled up in the corner and cried. He left the house at some point, before Mom came home. She found me there, and... and we left the next morning, all three of us, after Dad went to work. We stayed in a shelter for a little while. Isabelle told me later that he'd started with her when she was ten. He told her he'd kill us all if she ever told Mom, so she didn't. Not until after we'd left."

"Oh God, Miranda. I'm so sorry..." Alex got up onto her knees on the bed, leaned forward to hug Miranda tightly. "I can't imagine how horrible that must've been." She was crying too now, she realized, but wasn't sure when she'd started.

"It's okay. I haven't seen him again since then. I don't ever want to see him again."

"Yeah - I can understand that. Just a sec, I'm going to get some tissues." She got the box off the desk, pulled out several, handed them to Miranda, then pulled out a few for herself. The two of them were silent for a minute or two as they dried their eyes and faces.

Finishing up, Miranda gave Alex a fragile smile. "Thanks - and sorry. I really didn't come here meaning to dump on you. I don't even think about it much any more, usually. But after I saw you and Justin the other day, I was worried. And when I saw the bruise on your face, and that bite, well... it kind of brought things back."

"It's okay. Look... Justin's not hurting me, really. But if it'll make you feel better, come around every few days and check on me. Then you'll see there's really nothing to worry about."

"I'd like that," Miranda said, nodding. "And... I'm sorry about butting into your business. I was just worried, and -"

"I understand that now," Alex said, waving it off. "It's okay." She reached up, scratched an eyebrow nervously. "Look. Like you said, this is our business - mine and Justin's." Alex shifted uncomfortably on the bed, then spoke in a rush. "I know this isn't normal. I know it's illegal. But -"

Miranda interrupted, taking Alex's hand again. "Stop. I know what you're going to say. I'm not going to tell anyone. I don't really think anyone else has a right to tell you how to live your life. Hello, goth girl here, you know? And... this may sound sappy, but there's not enough love in the world. Hold onto what you've got. If you make each other happy, that's all that really matters. You shouldn't have to worry about what other people think." Realizing what she was saying, Miranda made a crooked smile and said, "And that includes me. If you want to tell me to go fuck off, go ahead and -"

Alex cut her off with a wave. "To tell the truth, I could use someone to talk to. I'm working on getting my GED, but it's going really slow, and... you already know what's going on here. I've made a couple of other friends here, but there's some things I can't talk to them about, and..."

She smiled then and shook her head. "... and maybe it's kind of crazy, with you being Justin's ex and all, but... you always seemed nice, and I don't hate you or anything, so..." Alex stopped again, shrugged, then grinned a little at Miranda. "But if you -" she started, then cut off as she heard the sound of a key in the lock.

"Class let out a little early," Justin started as he came in, unslinging his backpack from his shoulder and casually setting it down by the door. "I got the - oh. Uh, hi Miranda." He stopped, questions apparent on his face, but didn't say anything.

"Hi," she said back, quickly wadding up the tissues that were in her hands. "I was just, uh, talking to Alex here." She paused a moment too long before finishing, "Girl stuff." Miranda half-jumped off the bed, moving her hand to her side and slipping the wad of tissues into her pocket in what she hoped was a discreet way. "Anyway, I should be going. Oh, Alex... here." From her other pocket, she pulled a folded piece of paper, handed it to Alex, who frowned, but took it.

Justin stepped aside as Miranda let herself out. Just before she closed the door, she peeked back in quickly and said, "Bye. I'll talk to you later, Alex." The door shut, and Justin kept looking at it for a moment before he turned back to Alex.

"I hate to ask questions like this, but... Alex, what just happened?"

Alex looked at Justin, swallowed, then said, "Uhh... Miranda kind of found out about us."


	9. Chapter 9

"Kind of? How exactly can she _kind of_ find out about us, Alex? " Justin walked to the desk, set the bag with their lunch down on it. "She already knows you're my sister, so… does she think I'm half your boyfriend?"

Alex rolled her eyes. "You know what I mean. She found out that we're together. And that I'm living here. And… she kind of thought you were abusing me."

Justin stared at his sister for a moment, shook his head, stared at her again for a moment, his mouth dropping open. "She thinks _what?_ Why - why - why would she think I was abusing you?"

"Um… hello?" Alex pointed at the bruise on her face. "Remember this?"

"Okay. Okay." Justin put his hand to his forehead. "We can fix this. I can track her down, do a memory charm. I just need to do it before she talks to anyone else." He turned and started heading for the door.

"No, wait! You don't have to do that, Justin!" Alex stood up from the bed, ready to run after Justin if she needed to.

Justin turned back toward Alex and raised an eyebrow. "You did a memory charm on her already?"

"No… but it's okay anyway!" Alex said quickly, before Justin could start trying to head after Miranda again. "She's okay with it. She said… she said that if we make each other happy, that's all that matters. She's not going to tell anyone. And Justin, I could _really_ use someone to talk to - someone who knows about us. I'm kinda going crazy here."

Justin shook his head again. "Wait - what happened to her thinking that I'm abusing you?"

"She knows you're not now. Her dad abused her, and… she kind of jumped to the wrong conclusions. But we've talked about it now, and she's going to be checking on me, and now I'll have someone to talk to, and it's all better." She smiled, tilted her head to the side. "See? I managed to fix it. All by myself. And I didn't even have to use magic!"

"Uh-huh. Well…." Justin took three steps back to his sister, taking off his jacket as he did. He dropped the jacket on the desk, looked down at Alex, who was still smiling at him with her head tilted. "I hope you're right," he said, shaking his head. "But we need to be more careful. Miranda may have taken it well, but we can't expect that anyone else will."

He brought one hand up and stroked Alex's cheek softly, made half a smile as he did. "And it is good that you have someone to talk to. I know you've been missing that. So… I guess we can bend the rule for one person." Justin brought his head down another couple of inches and kissed Alex softly on the lips.

_Well, he handled that better than I thought he would, _Alex thought, returning the kiss as she did. Justin broke the kiss after just a moment, then brushed Alex's hair back from the bruise, looking at it. "I got the gel. Sit down and I'll put it on you." He turned to where he'd laid down his jacket, reached into the inner pocket and pulled out a tube, unscrewed the cap, then squeezed out a bit of the gel onto his fingers. Carefully, he started to apply it to Alex's bruise.

Alex watched Justin's face as he put the gel on her. He had his serious look on, concentrating on her bruise - _no, on _me_. _ Alex smiled at that, said, "You know something. I love the way you take care of me."

Justin smiled again at that. "I'll always take care of you, Alex. I love you." He squeezed out a little more gel and continued to work. After a few moments, he reached for the tissues on the bed, then used a couple to wipe the gel from his fingers. "That's got your bruise covered. We'll need to do that again in a few hours."

Standing up, he reached past Alex to get the lunch he'd brought. He took out a sandwich and chips, gave those to Alex. _Goodie. Sandwiches again. _With a mental sigh, Alex unwrapped hers and started to eat. It wasn't bad - actually, it was pretty good - but Alex was tired of them. Justin did the same with his, and for a minute or two, they ate in silence.

"So… did you get to talk to your professors and get an extension on those papers?" Alex asked, not looking at Justin as she did, since she was still feeling guilty about that.

"Half and half," Justin answered. "Doctor Pauls said yes, I could have until the end of finals week. I talked to Doctor Rosenberg's TA, and she said no extensions is the policy, but I can still try to find Rosenberg himself and try to convince him." Justin paused for a moment to take a bit, chew, and swallow before continuing. "That's okay, though. If I have the extension on one, then I can work on the other this week. It won't be my best work, rushing it like that, but I can at least get something turned in."

Alex nodded. "Good," she said. "I'm glad I didn't wreck things completely there."

"Hey…." Justin put a hand on Alex's arm, looked at her. "I told you not to worry about it. I'll manage." He grimaced then, said, "But that reminds me… I'm going to have to go to the library tonight. I lost my notes as well, so I'm going to have to go get some of the books I used and look through them. He smiled then, said, "Why don't you grab your GED book and meet me there? We can make it a study date."

Fighting to keep from rolling her eyes, Alex thought. _Oh, great. That'll be loads of fun._ Aloud, she said, "Only if we can have a date-date later. And the one you already said we'd do on Saturday can't be it."

"All right," Justin said with a nod. "Meet me there at six. I'll be on the third floor in the back." Finished with his sandwich, Justin folded up the wrapper it had come in, took a long pull from his drink, then set the bag of chips aside for later. "Well, I'd better get going in a minute."

_Okay_, Alex thought. _If this works, I can keep out of any more trouble. Here goes._ "Justin - I think we should tell someone else." Frowning, Justin started to open his mouth, but Alex continued before he could say anything. "I think we should tell Harper. I mean, she already knows about magic, and she's handled that just fine. And she's still my best friend… it doesn't feel right that Miranda knows, but Harper doesn't. And I hate getting -"

"Alex… no. Not right now, at least," he clarified. "Miranda's just found out. She says she's okay with it, but I'd rather wait a little while and see. Maybe a month or two. Then maybe we could tell Harper."

"But -" Alex started, only to be immediately cut off by Justin.

"_No._ It's too big a risk right now. If anyone from the college finds out, I'd get kicked out of the dorm, and then we wouldn't have a place to live. If Mom and Dad find out, they'd stop supporting me. And I don't need the extra stress right now, while I'm trying to deal with finals and papers and everything. Like I said, maybe in a month or two. But not right now, Alex," he finished with a 'I'm done talking about this' wave of his hand.

Narrowing her eyes at her brother, Alex let out an angry _rrr_ at him. "I wish you'd be more reasonable," she said then. "This isn't easy for me either, you know!"

Justin let out a sigh and rubbed his forehead. "Alex - we can talk more about this later, okay? I don't have time for a big argument right now." He moved forward to kiss Alex, but she turned her head to the side, so his kiss landed on her cheek instead of her lips. "I love you," he said, giving her shoulder a squeeze.

"Yeah, well, I'm mad at you right now, Justin," Alex snapped out. "Just go on to your class," she finished, folding her arms.

Sighing mentally, Justin got up and moved to the door, put his hand on the knob. _Great. Hope she's over this by tonight._ He knew that her anger didn't usually last long, but still, it hurt when she acted like this toward him, and Justin tried again. "I love you," he said again, then waited a moment, but Alex didn't respond, so Justin opened the door and slipped out, drawing it silently shut behind him.

* * *

Alex spent the next few hours by eating the cookies, then Justin's chips (knowing he'd forgive her, because, well, he always did), watching soap operas in Spanish (not having any more than the barest idea what they were saying was half the fun), taking out her sketchpad and picking a picture from it to redraw, heading up to the girls' floor above to shower, coming back down, throwing on a t-shirt (black, long-sleeved, plain), then another over it (grey with "My Boyfriend is Cuter Than Yours" in pink) and blue sweat pants. _Maybe I'll go to his stupid 'study date', but no way I'm dressing up for it._

By this point, she was starting to feel a little guilty about being mad at Justin… which made her angrier. _Dammit, why does he have to be right all the time?_ She thought, throwing a pen across the room._ Would it kill him to be wrong once in a while? Or at least _pretend_ to be?_ So she took out Justin's DS, then sorted through his games, rearranging them as she did so. _Petz Nursery? Really?_ She played a few of them, saved over some of his latest saved games, put them back into a different drawer of the desk, then looked at the time. 5:16. _Study date. Whoever came up with that idea should be condemned to never have a real date again._ _I should just let him sit there alone._

Twenty minutes later, Alex was still pretending that she wasn't going to go, even as she was picking out a different outfit to wear. The t-shirt stayed (_hey, it's true)_, but the sweats were replaced with black woolen stockings, with a purple skirt over them. A peace sign necklace and a grey knit hat completed her outfit, but she also grabbed Justin's jacket that he'd forgotten, thinking it would be cold by the time they left (and she'd make him let her wear it on the way back. Or maybe make him wrap it around both of them, and press up against him for warmth. Yeah.).

Dressed, she spent another ten minutes killing time, telling herself she wasn't going to go, knowing she was. Then she told herself she'd get there late, make him wonder if she was coming. _Yeah. I'll leave in another ten minutes. That should do it._

Six minutes after that was when her phone rang. Alex grinned. _That'll be Justin, looking for me. I'll let it ring three times, make him wonder if I'm going to answer._ She picked it up, brought it about six inches from her ear, put her thumb to the green phone button, waited. After the third ring, she gave it two seconds, then thumbed the button. "Hello?" she answered, using her 'sweet and innocent' voice.

"Hey," Lexie's voice answered, and Alex frowned at that, straightened up from the pose she'd unconsciously struck.

"Hey, Lexie. What's -" she started, but Lexie cut her off.

"Mom just got a call from the police," she said, her voice high and strained. "Justin's been hit by a car."

"What? Is he okay?" Alex grabbed for the desk chair, sat herself down in it, her head suddenly feeling like it was spinning.

"I don't know. We're about to leave for the hospital. Presbyterian Hospital. I can't stay on the phone. I'll text you when we get there."

Alex nodded, then realized Lexie couldn't see her, said, "Okay. I'll be there." She didn't wait for the call to drop, just grabbed her keys, then hurried out the door. _I've never been there, so I can't just teleport there. I'll have to get a cab. Do I have money for a cab? Oh hell, I don't have my purse._ Turning around, she ran back to the dorm room's door, fumbled with the keys, opened the door, grabbed her purse, then ran down the hall again, letting the door swing itself closed.

_Please be okay. Please, please, _please_ be okay._


	10. Chapter 10

The cabbie took Alex to the emergency entrance of Presbyterian Hospital, on Broadway. She hurried to the doorway and stopped in it, looking around. There was no sign of her family, and she frowned, then nodded a little at that. _Of course. They're coming from downtown._ A man with a scruffy grey beard and clothes that looked like he slept in them started eyeing Alex as she stood there, and she started moving again, giving him an quick glare, then walked up to the receiving desk. A tall man in a long brown coat was already there, talking to a nurse with a patient voice at the station - a dirty blonde in blue scrubs - and Alex took a moment to look around.

The waiting area was crowded enough that she didn't bother to count all the people - there were over a dozen, at least. Several of them were in obvious pain, and some just looked worried. _Probably waiting for somebody. Like me._

"Miss, can I help you?" the patient voice asked, and Alex turned back to the nurse and nodded quickly.

"My brother came in on an ambulance. I'm looking for him."

"What's his name? We get three ambulances coming in here an hour, on average." The nurse turned to her computer terminal, raising her fingers to the keyboard.

"Justin Russo. He was hit by a car." Alex tried not to fidget as the nurse typed. After a moment, she nodded and turned back to Alex.

"He was brought in about fifteen minutes ago. They've taken him for a CT scan." The nurse paused, then said, "He was unconscious when he was brought in. Would you be able to fill out paperwork for him?"

Alex shook her head quickly. "I don't think so - I'm seventeen. Our parents should be here soon, though. How bad is he hurt?"

"I'm afraid your parents will need to speak to the doctor about that when they arrive. But we won't really know until after the scan," she added her expression softening a little as she took in Alex's obvious distress. "Have a seat in the waiting area," she said, nodding toward it. "The doctor should have an update in about half an hour."

Numbly, Alex nodded, then turned, walked to the waiting area, and sank down into one of the plastic chairs, picking one that left a couple of empty seats between her and anyone else. There were magazines on a table beside her, and she picked up a copy of _Us_, flipped it open at random, looked at the bright pictures of pretty people without really seeing them. _The nurse doesn't seem worried. Is that good? Or is it just because it's no one she knows?_

Each time the doors opened, she looked up, expecting to see her family, disappointed when it wasn't. The fourth time they opened, it was finally them, and Alex shifted her feet to stand up and rush over to them - and then stopped as she saw Lexie. _What the hell was I thinking?_ She lifted her magazine to hide her face, but it didn't matter: they went straight to the front desk, her mom immediately starting to talk to the nurse. Max was sticking close beside her, his face showing a worried expression Alex had rarely seen on him. Their dad was missing - probably still parking the car. Lexie trailed behind and looked around, spotted Alex and mouthed something while pointing toward the RESTROOMS sign.

Alex had no idea what Lexie was trying to say, but the pointing was clear enough. Alex nodded to her, got up, and headed into the women's restroom to wait. It felt like ten minutes before Lexie came in, but according to Alex's cell phone, it was only two.

Before saying anything, they hugged each other and held on tightly for several seconds. Alex spoke first, saying, "Did they tell you guys anything yet? All they told me was that he was unconscious, and they were taking him for some kind of scan."

"The doc's supposed to come out in a few minutes to talk to us," Lexie said, then, "How are you? God, I know I'm half a basket case right now, and it's probably twice as bad for you." She gave a weak smile, tears shining in her eyes.

Alex nodded, not trusting herself to speak just yet. Instead, she hugged Lexie again, taking comfort from touching anyone who understood at that moment, even her own duplicate. "Yeah," she finally said as she released the hug. "I... I was mad at Justin when he left. He said I love you, and I didn't say it back to him, and... he's got to be all right. He _has_ to."

"Hey," Lexie said, grasping Alex's upper arm. "It's not your fault. And he knows you love him, even if you don't say it. Don't blame yourself, okay?" With a weak smile, Alex nodded, and Lexie smiled at her, then went on. "Okay, so... I'm going to give you the same clothes and stuff I have. And then we'll just have to take turns, I guess." She swallowed, then gave Alex a guilty look. "That's okay, right? I mean... I know I don't love him the way you do, but he's still my brother."

"It's okay," Alex answered. "I'd try putting both our brains in one head or something, but we'd probably mess it up, and we don't need that right now. This'll have to do."

Lexie pulled out her wand, said, "_Alex looks just like me, so her dress the same should be._" Light shimmered back and forth between the two girls, and then Alex was wearing the same outfit as Lexie - a black fringed jacket over a white long-sleeved tee and purple cami, blue jeans with stars painted up one leg, and black suede boots with a fleece lining. Alex looked in the mirror, nodded to see that the spell had also changed her makeup and hair to match, making the two look fully identical.

"Okay," Lexie said then. "You go first. I'm going to find a waiting room or something to hang out in, instead of sitting in here, so text me for the switch."

"Will do. And thanks again." Alex gave Lexie a quick final hug, then headed out of the bathroom and quickly walked to her family. Her dad had joined them now, and they were in the waiting area, visibly worried and impatient. Max had taken the seat by their mom. Both mom and dad were filling out forms, having divided the stack between them to speed things up, so Alex sat down beside Jerry. He looked up at her as she did, took her hand and squeezed it, giving her an 'it's going to be okay' smile. She held onto his hand for a second before releasing it, grateful for the little reassurance.

They finished the forms, and Jerry took them back to the nurse, then returned to sit back down. With him no longer busy, Alex leaned against him, let her dad put his arm around her. They stayed like that, all four uncharacteristically silent, until a tall doctor with light brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard came out, spoke to the nurse for a moment, and she pointed him toward the four of them. They all stood up and walked to meet him halfway.

"Hello. I'm Doctor Townes," the man said - unnecessarily, since his name tag already told them that much.

"I'm Jerry Russo, Justin's father." Jerry and the doctor shook hands briefly as Jerry asked, "How's my son?"

"His condition isn't life-threatening, but he has a broken collarbone, a dislocated shoulder, and he's suffered a concussion. He's in a coma right now, but that's not unusual, and the CT scan doesn't show any major bleeding in his brain, so we don't think he's going to need surgery for that. He's breathing on his own, and still has normal reflexive responses, which is all good. We'll have to do follow-up scans to see how the injury is progressing, though."

"When will he wake up?" Theresa put in, and the doctor looked to her. "I'm Theresa, Justin's mother. These are our other children, Alex and Max," she added.

Doctor Townes nodded to them. "We can't really say. He could wake up any minute, or it could take a day or two. From what the CT scan showed, I doubt it will be much longer than that."

"But it could be longer?" Alex asked. "How long could it be?"

"It's hard to predict," the doctor replied, turning his gaze to Alex. "The greatest danger right now is secondary injury - we'll need to keep him here for a few days to make sure that there's no bleeding or swelling that could cause further injury to his brain. If there is, his prognosis becomes much worse."

_Nice job not answering my question_, Alex thought. She opened her mouth to ask another question, but before she could, Jerry asked, "What does 'much worse' mean?"

The doctor paused a moment before answering. "He could die, Mister Russo, or he might suffer permanent brain damage." He held up a hand quickly then, adding, "I don't think that's likely, though. The ambulance got him here quickly, and the initial scan looks very promising. His other injuries are minor, but we'll need to keep him here for two or three days at least, to make sure his head injury doesn't worsen."

Jerry swallowed, then nodded. "Of course. Whatever's going to be best for my boy."

Theresa and Alex both nodded along with Jerry, then Alex spoke up again, this time speaking to her parents. "Can I stay here tonight? Please? I don't want him to wake up and be alone."

Jerry looked at her for a moment, then to Theresa, who nodded. "Can she stay, doctor?"

"He'll be in intensive care until he wakes up and we can properly assess him. I'm afraid she can't stay in there. Once he's woken up and can be moved, if he has a private room, she can stay there with him. To get a private room, you'll need to request it." Alex blinked back tears, and Theresa moved closer to her, put a hand on her shoulder.

"Does it cost extra?" Jerry asked, and both Theresa and Alex glared at him.

"Of course," the doctor answered with a wry smile. "Visiting hours in the ICU are noon to two, four to six, and eight to ten, so you'll be able to see him at eight."

Theresa and Alex stepped away while Jerry asked the doctor a few more questions. Theresa ran her hand down Alex's arm, asked, "Are you okay, mija?"

Alex started to nod, then suddenly shook her head, shutting her eyes tightly to fight back tears. "No," she got out. "I'm scared."

"Come here." Theresa put her arms around Alex, held her close. "We're all scared. But we're here for each other. It's going to be all right."

When she could, Alex made an excuse to slip away, found Lexie, and let her know quickly what was happening. "They're going to go have dinner in the cafeteria, since we can't see Justin until ICU visiting hours start at eight anyway."

"Okay. What about you, though - if we switch right now, what are you going to eat?"

"Don't worry about that," Alex said, waving it aside. "I'll get something from a vending machine later. I'm going to head up to the ICU and see if there's a window I can look in through or something. Oh - dad's being a tightwad, and doesn't want to have Justin put in a private room. I think mom will want him in one, though. Can you help her argue him into it?"

"Sure," Lexie said, nodding. "I'd like to be able to see him too, after all."

"Good." Alex smiled a little. "Text me when you guys head up, so I can clear out of the way."

Lexie shook her head. "Uh... I don't think you're allowed to use a cell phone there. Just keep an eye on the clock, and clear out around five 'til. If we come up before then, I'll try to warn you somehow."

"Okay." They traded hugs again, and Lexie went off to join the family, while Alex took the elevator up to the ICU's floor. The ride up felt slow, and she spent the time looking at the map that was posted inside the elevator, trying to ignore the nervous twisting sensation in her stomach as she did. _I don't think I can stay at the dorm tonight. Not without him. _Alex had a sudden urge to go back home, to their parents' home, to sleep in his room there. _No, I can't do that. Mom's too much of a worrier. She'll get up in the middle of the night and make up some reason to go in Justin's room, because she's worried about him and wants to be in there to think about him, and find me in there, and if she notices there's two of me, then, well..._

_Miranda,_ she thought suddenly. _I'll bet that paper she gave me was her number._ Alex fished the paper from her pocket, unfolded it. Sure enough, it was a phone number, along with an email address. She reached for her cell automatically, then stopped, remembering that she wasn't supposed to use it here. The elevator dinged then, and she got out and turned right, keeping her eyes open for a courtesy phone as she went. There was one outside of the ICU, but she didn't use it yet. Instead, she went to the windows, looked in... and there he was.

He didn't look right. Never mind the monitors hooked up to him, the bag hanging with its tube running down to his arm, the bruises and bandages. Justin never slept that way, on his back, arms at his sides. He should be sleeping on his side (_with his arms around me_), not like that. Alex felt an urge to tap on the glass, even raised her hand up and rested it against there, but there were two people working in there, and other patients besides Justin, and if she did, they might kick her out.

So Alex watched silently, staring at her brother through the glass, slowly crying. Justin's chest rose and fell, and sometimes he moved a little, and it was good to see that he was at least still alive. There was a clock on the wall, and she checked it sometimes as time slid by. At fifteen 'til, she went back to the phone, wiped her face dry, pulled out the paper with Miranda's number again, and pushed the buttons. She got a recorded message, then noticed the sign by the phone saying "Please dial '9' first for an outside line. Local and toll-free calls only."

It rang three times, and Alex was sure she was going to get voice mail, when she got a "Hi." It took Alex a moment to speak, since she was expecting it to go on with the standard "I'm unable to take your call" kind of thing, but it didn't.

"Hi, Miranda? It's Alex," she said finally. "I... I kind of need a place to stay tonight."

"You can stay here," Miranda said from the other end. "Did something happen?"

"Yeah - not like that, though. Justin got hit by a car," she blurted, then had to stop as tears suddenly threatened.

"Oh... oh my God. How bad is it?"

"They don't know yet for sure." As she spoke, Alex took hold of the handset cord, started to twirl it. "They think he's going to live, but he's unconscious, and he might be that way for a day or two. He's in the ICU, so I can't stay with him, and... I don't think I can sleep in the dorm by myself."

"Of course. Do you need me to come get you? Where are you?"

"I'm at Presbyterian Hospital - the one closest to campus. But I can get back to campus on my own. It won't be 'til later, though - they have visiting hours until ten, and I want to stay as long as I can."

"Okay. Do you know where Jefferson is? I'm in 421 there. I've got a roommate, but I'm sure she won't mind."

"Thanks," Alex said with a small smile. "I can find it. I'll be there by eleven."

"Okay. Just call up from outside, and I'll come down to let you in."

Alex nodded. "Yeah, I know the drill." _Not that I've done it that often, since I can teleport into Justin's room, but I know it._ "Thanks again."

"Of course. I hope he gets better quick."

"Yeah." Alex smiled weakly, said, "Me too. Bye."

After Miranda's answering goodbye, Alex hung up, then went back to the window, looked at Justin, who was still the same, then at the clock. It hadn't quite taken all of three minutes to make the call, she discovered. _Okay. Seven more minutes, then I have to clear out. _She sighed, thinking, _This is gonna be a long night._


	11. Chapter 11

Dinner was a Snickers (_Hey, it has peanuts. Practically makes it health food compared to some of this)_, a bag of Bugles (_At least they don't leave anything on my fingers_), and a Coke. _Wow. And that was two sixty-five. These guys are moving up from highway robbery to Interstate level. _

Alex threw the trash away, then started stalking around the tiny waiting room, exploring it. _I hate waiting. And a _room_ that's for waiting? That's just an awful idea. _Three chairs, one couch, all upholstered in easy-to-clean vinyl, check. One potted plant, check. Three end tables, cheap fake wood. One TV, mounted up where patient's families can't get their grubby hands on it. One remote, regrettably missing in action, thereby leaving the TV permanently tuned to Headline News. And, of course, the ubiquitous hospital clock, there so you can torture yourself with how long you have left until you can spend some time with the person you're here to see again.

_Well, that entertained me for a solid thirty seconds. How about we check the magazines? People, three months old. Reader's Digest, six months. TV Guide, current, so you can see what it is you can't switch the channel to. Nice. Newsweek (boring), Time (now 50% more boring than Newseek!), The Economist (leaves them both in the dust for boring), Sports Illustrated - does anyone ever actually read that, or do they just get it for the swimsuit issue? - and oh, hey, Track & Field and Good Housekeeping. Can't have a waiting room without those._

"Wait," Alex said then, suddenly shaking her head. "What am I doing? I'm a _wizard_. Okay, let's take care of the TV first," she said, pulling out her wand and waving it. The channel immediately changed to Cartoon Network. Another wave of the wand and a quick "_Commakus pancakus_", and she had a plate with a stack blueberry pancakes, with a side of bacon.

_What?_ Alex stared at the plate for a good ten seconds, then swallowed and closed her eyes. _I made Justin's favorite. Of course. _No longer feeling hungry, Alex simply dropped plate and all into the trash can. She jabbed her wand at the TV, and it turned off with a popping sound that made her wince. _Oops._

Alex flopped down on the couch, conjured her sketch pad and a pencil from the dorm, flipped to a blank page and started moving the pencil at random, making tangled squiggles all over the page, just letting her hand do whatever it wanted, but keeping the pressure light. After a minute or so of that, she stopped, then stared at the page, trying to see something in the tangle of lines. But nothing came, and nothing came, and then she saw the shape of Justin's nose there, of his eyebrow, and with a wordless cry, Alex threw the pad across the room, then turned around, burying her face against the couch and crying into it, ignoring the cold, semi-slick feel of the vinyl.

* * *

"Hey. Time to wake up."

"What?" Alex blinked and sat up, looked up at Lexie. "I fell asleep? What time is it?" She wiped her eyes, looked at the clock. 8:21, it showed, and Alex sighed in relief.

"Your turn," Lexie said, hooking her thumb back toward the ICU. "He still hasn't woken up. We got Dad to agree to the private room, though."

"You did? That's great!" Alex stood up and quickly hugged Lexie, said, "Thank you!"

"No problem. Max actually helped too. With all of us against him, Dad folded quick." Lexie looked at Alex for a moment, then said, "You know… if you wanted to sleep at home tonight, I could take the dorm room."

"Oh… thanks, but I already talked to Miranda, and I'm supposed to sleep over with her tonight."

"Wait… what? Miranda? Like, Justin's ex? _That_ Miranda?" Lexie asked, looking at Alex disbelievingly.

"Yeah. Long story, I'll tell you later. Short version is Miranda saw us kissing, so I had to tell her about us. She's okay with it."

"Did you tell her about magic too, or is she still in the dark about that?"

Alex grimaced, said, "She's still in the dark there. I figured we didn't need the wizard police coming down on us again."

"Yeah, that's definitely true," Lexie answered with a nod. "So… you have any other news to shock me with?"

"Uhh…" Alex looked away, bit her lip. "I also told Harper."

"What?" Lexie shook her head quickly, blinked three times fast. "That was a joke. You weren't supposed to _really_ have other news to shock me with."

"Sorry. I was just trying to give her advice about how her first time with Zeke, and then she asked me who I'd had sex with, and… I couldn't lie to her."

"Okay, well…." Lexie reached up and scratched the back of her head. "Congratulations! This should make things easier, with her knowing about things."

"Well… actually, I didn't get to tell her everything yet. She was kind of mad, and she left before I could tell her any more about it."

"Oh." Lexie looked at Alex for a few moments, then buried her face in her hands. "So… Harper knows and is mad, but doesn't know about there being two of us. And Miranda knows and is okay with it, but doesn't know about there being two of us, or about magic. Is there anything _else_ I should know? Did you make another one of us?" Her voice rising, she went on, saying, "Or maybe another Justin? Oh, I know - maybe you rented a sign in Times Square and plastered up, 'Hi, my name's Alex Russo, and I'm in love with my _brother!_'"

Lexie stopped there, took her hands down, opened her eyes and looked at Alex for a moment, then heaved out a sigh. "I'm sorry. It's just… it's just a lot to take, on top of what's already just happened today."

Alex smiled on one side of her mouth and chuckled. "Yeah. Tell me about it. And the day isn't even over yet."

* * *

When Jerry had to get a snack, Alex said she wanted one too, and went with him. Once they were out in the hall, away from where the ICU nurses could hear, she looked up at her dad. He had that look - his worried look, the one he usually had when something was going seriously wrong because of something she'd done, and they weren't sure how to fix it yet.

Alex didn't like that look. Her dad was _good_ at fixing things. At least, magic things. Sure, he was lousy at plumbing, or wiring, but… those weren't the kinds of things that the Russos usually had trouble with, so Alex was used to Jerry being able to fix things, and if he couldn't, well….

"Dad?"

"Yeah, Alex?" Seeing the nervousness on Alex's face, Jerry took her hand in his, squeezed lightly.

"Can't we just magic Justin back to being healthy? I mean… I know we can't do it in front of people, but maybe I could distract the nurses for a minute or something, or Max could, and…." She trailed off, not sure just what she was proposing.

Jerry closed his eyes for a moment. He'd knew this question would probably come up, but that didn't make it any easier. "No, honey, we can't. Healing magic is complicated - wizard doctors train for years. It's not something I can teach you in a few minutes. If you're going to heal something - say, a broken bone - you have to understand what it should be like when it's healthy. So wizard doctors still have to learn a lot."

"And it's even worse with brain injuries," he went on, pressing the button for the elevators with his free hand as he talked. "Nobody really understands how the brain works - so you can't just cast a spell and fix someone's brain. You have to do the same kind of things mortal doctors do - stop bleeding, relieve pressure, that kind of thing." The elevator arrived, and the two of them got in. Once the doors shut, Jerry continued. "A wizard doctor has ways to do those things that a mortal doctor doesn't, but they're still doing the same kind of thing."

He sighed, rubbed the bridge of his nose for a second, then went on. "Anyway, though, he's here now. No wizard doctor is going to walk into a mortal hospital and work. There's too much risk of exposing magic. We'd have to get him out of here, and there's too much chance that we could hurt him, if we tried to do that."

Alex sighed and made an unhappy face, but she nodded. "Okay. It's hard though. And I'm really worried about him, daddy."

"I know honey," Jerry said, shifting his hand up and drawing his daughter into a hug. "We all are."

* * *

After visiting hours had ended, they pulled one more switch, and Lexie went home with Jerry, Theresa, and Max, while Alex teleported from the bathroom to Justin's dorm room. The lights were already on - in her rush leaving, she hadn't thought to flip them off - and Alex set to gathering together a change of clothes and her toiletries to go spend the night with Miranda, doing it as quickly as she could. Everywhere she looked in the dorm room, she was reminded of Justin, and she didn't want to stay in it without him a second longer than she had to.

As it turned out, Miranda's dorm wasn't far, so it was barely 10:30 when she got there. They hugged, and Miranda introduced her roommate Shelly, a too-skinny blonde theatre major with a pixie cut. Alex thought she'd be cute if she put on another ten pounds, changed her eyeshadow to something other than that hideous pink, and grew out her hair, but within ten minutes of meeting Shelly, she knew she was never going to tell her those things. The girl kept wanting to talk about her drama classes, and the play she was in, and while she made politely sympathetic noises about what Alex must be going through, with her boyfriend in the hospital (_and thank you, Miranda, for telling her that instead of saying I'm his sister_), it was obvious that she didn't really care.

Miranda, on the other hand, was great. She listened as Alex talked about Justin - what the doctors said, how worried she was, how it felt to sit there and watch him lie there unmoving, to take his hand and hold it, not feel him squeeze back when she squeezed. She asked enough questions to keep Alex talking, but didn't press when she ran out of things to say and was silent for a bit.

But most of all, she was there. They hugged a few times, held hands, talked, sat and watched stupid meaningless TV shows, both sitting on Miranda's bed, until Alex finally fell asleep. She woke at eight-thirty, when Miranda got up to go to class, and was embarrassed to find that she was asleep on Miranda's bed, while Miranda had slept on blankets on the floor. But Miranda said it was okay, and to go back to sleep - she'd come back after her first class and get Alex up, so she could be back to the hospital in time for the noon to two visiting hours.

After Miranda left, Alex lay on her bed, feeling sleepy, but also worried again, wondering how Justin was. _Maybe I should go on to the hospital, check on things. Or maybe…._ She sat up as an idea struck her, then smiled, went to the bag she'd brought to Miranda's, and dug out her wand. _Okay, first stop, the lair._ She teleported to there, looked around quickly. No one was there, and Alex quickly went to the shelves, found what she was looking for, then teleported back to Miranda's dorm.

She put her wand back away, then took a few minutes to arrange the covers around her, putting the crystal ball where it was hidden from the rest of the room by them, but she could still see it. Then she concentrated on Justin, smiled when he appeared in it after a few seconds. It didn't look like anything had changed - he was still in the ICU, still lying there the same way, and Alex felt a mixture of worry that he hadn't woken up yet, and happiness that she still might be there when he did.

Or maybe she could help. Gazing into the crystal, she concentrated, picturing the result she wanted in her mind, then said, "_To help my brother come back to me, I wish to in his dreams now be._"


	12. Chapter 12

White mists stretched around Alex as far as she could see - which wasn't far, since the mists were also fairly thick. Above her, the sky was utterly black, without stars, moon, or even clouds that she could see. Below, the mists hid whatever surface she was standing on.

_Okay, what kind of dream is this?_ There was no sign of Justin to be seen. Alex tried walking, then running, but she couldn't even be sure she was really moving - there was nothing in the world but the blackness above and the endless white mist. "This is getting me nowhere," she said, stopping and shaking her head. After a moment's thought, she lifted both hands and cupped them around her mouth, then shouted, "JUSTIN!"

A second passed, then another. With no reply coming, she turned around, tried the opposite direction. "JUSTIN! IT'S ALEX!" She waited again, then frowned and chewed at her bottom lip. _All right. Maybe this wasn't the good idea I thought it was. So..._

"Alex?" The voice was weak, distant-sounding, but unmistakably Justin's.

"Justin! I'm here!" she called back, jumping up and down and waving her arms, hoping maybe he could see her, even if she couldn't see him.

"Where?" the voice came back, and it sounded this time like it was coming from Alex's left. She turned that way and began walking quickly.

"Over here! You come toward me, and we'll keep talking! Maybe we can find each other that way!"

"Okay," he called back. "But what are we going to talk about?"

His voice seemed to be a bit to the right now, and she turned just a hair, kept walking. "Well, I don't know about you, but the first thing I want to say is I love you, and I'm sorry I was mad at you before!"

"It's okay - I love you too," he called back, then paused long enough that Alex was opening her mouth to say something when he spoke again. "Where are we anyway?"

"You tell me," she called back.

"I don't know!" he called, then "The last thing I remember is..."

Then suddenly the mists were gone, and Alex was standing on a corner in the city. It took her a moment to realize just where she was, and then it snapped into place - West 125th and St. Nicholas, standing by the entrance to the 125th street subway station. Across the way was Presidential Pizza, where they'd gone for dinner a few weeks ago... but where was Justin?

She looked around, then spotted him coming out of Gem Pawnbrokers across the street. Alex frowned for a moment, wondering what he was doing in there, then looked at the lights, wanting to get over to him. The light turned yellow, then red, and she looked back to Justin, saw him stepping into the crosswalk as the walk sign came on... and then there was a screeching of tires, and Alex's hand flew up to her mouth as a blue sedan that was trying to run the light hit Justin. He rolled over the hood of the car and hit the traffic light post as he went down. Alex was already running toward him before he hit the ground, calling out his name...

And then she was on a horse, riding through a forest at breakneck speed. Justin was beside her, astride another horse, holding his body low. She realized she was too, turned toward him to ask why, then shut her mouth and leaned down farther as a black-shafted arrow whizzed between them, shot from somewhere behind them.

Instead, she leaned down more and gripped the reins tightly. The long sleeves of her white dress lashed against her in the wind of the horse's run, and she glanced over at Justin and found herself suddenly jealous of his much more practical-looking trousers, blue shirt, brown vest, and leather... whatever those things on his forearms were.

_What is this? Some Dungeons & Gargoyles thing?_ she wondered, then stopped thinking and just hung on for dear life as the trail turned and the horses turned with it. Another arrow whined past as they did, this one close enough that it seemed she could reach out and grab it... and then Alex turned her head to look toward Justin again as his horse slowed, then stopped. She sat up on hers and pulled back the reins, saying, "Whoa... whoa... that's a good horse, yeah..."

It seemed to work, and she stopped too, a good twenty feet past where Justin had. Her horse turned a little, and she looked at Justin again, blinked in surprise as she saw that he was holding a large, silvery sword. He turned to her and gestured her away, hissing out, "Kahlan! Keep riding - if they don't hear a horse running ahead, they'll suspect an ambush!"

_Kahlan? I guess that's me..._ Not knowing who Justin was here, she simply nodded, then shook the reins of her horse and dug her heels into its sides. "Giddy up!" she called, and the horse started forward again, down the trail, moving at a trot. Alex shook the reins again and dug her heels in more, and the horse increased its pace. _Huh. I guess I did learn something from all those horse books Mom kept getting me when I was twelve._

She turned her head to look behind, in time to see the first of the following riders turn the corner and run right into the swing of Justin's sword. The rider came off his horse with a cry, and another horse and rider came around the corner right after them. It looked as if Justin was going to be run over, but he leapt forward, went down into a roll, and came back up as the rider was trying to stop his horse and bring up his crossbow. He weaved to the left as the rider fired, and Alex gasped in the midst of turning her horse back toward the fight as the bolt grazed Justin's right shoulder. Then he was to the rider, thrusting his sword up and into the man, then drawing it back swiftly, stepping backward with the motion.

Justin looked toward Alex and grinned, and she gasped as she saw a third rider come around the bend, his own sword out and held low, ready to strike Justin. Without even thinking about what she was doing, Alex pulled up the skirt of her white dress, pulled a dagger, and threw it at the rider. Seeing that, Justin dived to the side and rolled sideways, even as he dagger tumbled through the air to lodge in the throat of the third rider, who clutched at it for a fraction of a second before he went limp and fell from his horse.

Alex pulled up short at Justin and jumped off her horse, ran over to where he was already starting to sit up. "What the hell were you doing?" she asked him, grabbing his arm and helping pull him to his feet. "You could've gotten yourself killed! We would have outrun them!"

"No," Justin said, shaking his head. "We've been riding all day - their horses were fresh. We would've lost our lead quickly."

Looking at Justin, grinning there, his face sweaty and dirty from the dust kicked up by the horses, Alex opened her mouth to continue arguing, then suddenly pulled Justin against herself and kissed him hard, grinning a little into it as he made a surprised noise. After a moment, his hands moved onto her back, and she slid hers under his arms, clutching him tightly as they played with each others' lips and tongues. Suddenly uncaring of the fact that they were standing in the middle of a dirt trail, she reached down for Justin's belt and began to tug at it, trying to get the buckle loose.

Justin pulled his face up away from hers, but Alex simply shifted her kisses to his neck as his belt unbuckled. She slid a hand down into his pants, cupped him with it, and Justin moaned out, "Kahlan - no - you know we can't -"

"The hell I can't," Alex said, using her other hand to start pushing down his pants, stretching up as she did to try to kiss him again.

He pulled away, saying, "I'm sorry" - and everything changed again. Alex was in a surging throng of people, packed tightly into a space lit dimly by moving blue and purple spotlights that pulsed in time to the pounding music. Up on a stage, Tears of Blood was playing, the lead singer spitting the lyrics into his microphone as he strode across the stage, pointing out into the crowd - all of whom were wearing masks. Alex turned, looking up toward the balcony, where she and Justin had been when they'd gone to the ToB concert. The people there were in masks as well, the ones at the front reaching their hands out toward the stage, fists pumping in time with the music.

_If I could die in your arms tonight_

_Would that make everything all right_

She stared up at the people there, and then her eyes found him - the one person who wasn't wearing a mask, there at the edge of the balcony, his mouth moving as he sung out the lyrics as well.

_If I could kill all your fears tonight_

_Would I be a hero in your sight_

Alex looked around for a way up, started to push through the crowd, but there were too many of them, too close together, and she didn't know where she was going anyway. _Wait… can I do magic here too? Let's see…_

She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, she was on the balcony, standing next to Justin, and she smiled for a moment, just watching him as the song went on.

_Lies lies lies_

_Tell me the truth_

_Do you want me here_

_Will you shed another tear_

_If I died in your arms tonight_

_Would that bring the truth to light_

Alex reached for Justin, trying to put her arm through his, but someone else pushed forward then, up to the balcony, pushing between them. "Justin!" she called out, and he didn't seem to hear - but everyone else around them turned to look at her, all the masks, and a sudden chill ran through Alex as she realized that there were no eyes under the masks, just black spaces where the eyes should be.

They all started moving toward her, hands reaching for her, and Alex turned to run, even as Justin finally noticed her and turned as well, his hand reaching out toward her. She screamed his name again, and then she was falling, the balcony suddenly gone, the concert gone, but the music still playing.

_Or is just more_

_Lies lies lies_

_Only time you tell the truth_

_Is when I'm in your_

_thighs thighs thighs_

Alex didn't land so much as she was suddenly simply standing. She ducked her head and held up a hand as a howling wind tore at her hair and dress, blasting with a furnace's heat. After a moment, she let one eye open to a slit, then the other, peering through her lashes. She was standing atop a glassy smooth plain, marbled in black and grey, where mirrors stood everywhere, jutting from the ground at angles, as if they were some sort of crystalline growth.

She moved into the lee of the nearest one, out of the wind, then stared in surprise at herself, reflected in the mirror's surface. It was her, unmistakably, and she was still in a white dress - but a different one now, with puffed sleeves that left her shoulders bare, a beaded and jeweled bodice, and a bell-shaped floor-length skirt. Pearl beads were worked into her hair, and a silvery-white feather hung down on one side.

But it wasn't the dress that caught her attention, so much as herself. The Alex reflected back in the mirror had flawless skin, deep brown irises set in perfect whites, surrounded by long, lush dark lashes. Her lips were a deep rosy pink, soft and moistly inviting, and her hair had the kind of glossy sheen normally only seen in shampoo commercials.

_Is this how Justin sees me? _she wondered, even as her eyes scanned down across the rest of her reflection, noted that her bust was larger and waist narrower than in reality. The wind shifted then, and Alex had to turn away from the mirror to get it out of her eyes. _Okay, forget what I look like. Where's Justin?_ She looked around, then called for him. "Justin! Where are you!"

"I'm right here," his voice replied, sounding like it was right behind her, and Alex whirled. Justin was standing a dozen yards away, leaning against one of the mirror-crystals, smiling at Alex. She blinked at his costume - black boots, tight white pants that clearly showed the bulge at his crotch, a v-necked black jacket over a ruffled white shirt. His hair was long and spiky, sticking out in all directions.

"Alex," he said, "what did you do?"

"Justin, you need to wake up! You were hit by a car, and you're in a coma, and I used a spell to go into your dreams. Please, you need to wake up!"

The wind shifted again, blowing even harder now, and Alex had to grab the edge of the mirror by her to keep from falling down. It didn't seem to affect Justin at all, though, and he shook his head, walked to Alex, brought up a black-gloved hand to cup her cheek. "Alex - you shouldn't have done that. A coma is a brain shutting down to let itself heal. It -"

A gust of wind tore at Alex, and she lost her grip on the mirror, started to fall. Justin's hand shot out and grabbed her wrist, and then he pulled her to himself, put his other arm around her, held onto her as the wind that still didn't touch him lashed at her hair and dress.

"You've got to get back out," he said. "If you're in my dreams and I -" He stopped, swallowed, then shook his head as tears welled up in Alex's eyes. "You've got to get out." The ground shook under the two of them, and Justin pulled Alex away from the mirror crystal as pieces of it fell, putting himself in the way.

"No! I'm not going to leave you again!" Alex shook her head quickly, ignoring her tears as they started to roll down her face. "I love you! Please, Justin, please… don't leave me!"

Justin smiled down at her even as his own eyes began to shine with tears, raised his hand to cup and caress the side of Alex's face. "I'll never leave you, Alex. Never. But you can't stay here right now."

She buried her face in Justin's shoulder, felt him kiss her temple gently, then heard him start to sing to her, softly.

_How you turned my world, you precious thing_

_You starve and near exhaust me_

_Everything I've done, I've done for you._

The ground shook again, and Justin stopped, stroked her hair, then took Alex's head in both his hands, tilted it back. Grey-green eyes looked down into hers as he said, "It's time for you to go, Alex. I'm sorry." He paused, then spoke again. "_For Alex's safety, she now must leave, to the real world she must now flee, but I promise, she will again with me be._"

"No," she started, tightening her arms around Justin - and then she was in the hospital, standing beside his bed, looking down at Justin, gasping in shock as she watched him jerk and writhe on the narrow hospital bed. Alarms started to go off, and Alex looked around desperately, crying out, "_Help! He's having a seizure!_"

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

For those of you following along at home, in the second part of the dream, Alex and Justin are Kahlan and Richard from _Legend of the Seeker_. In the final part, they're Sarah and Jareth from _Labyrinth_. The song lines in the last part are from David Bowie's song "Within You" from the Labyrinth soundtrack. The lyrics at the Tears of Blood concert are mine. I imagine ToB as sounding a lot like the Violent Femmes.


	13. Chapter 13

The day crawled by for Alex, although later, she could only fuzzily recall most of it. Justin was taken for another CT scan, then to surgery. A doctor chewed her out for having been in the ICU outside of visiting hours, and threatened to have security escort her out of the hospital, and she was so upset that she just sat there and cried through it, not even thinking about turning him into anything.

When that doctor finally let her go, Alex teleported back to Miranda's dorm, changed her clothes, then teleported right back to the hospital. Twenty minutes later, a different doctor came and found her, told her that Justin had a subdural hematoma: torn veins bleeding in his head, making blood pool and built up pressure. He said it was a fairly common thing after an accident like this, and sometimes the bleeding was slow enough that it took days or even a couple of weeks for enough to build up to cause a problem.

They were lucky, he said. It had happened in the hospital, and they were able to treat him right away. And while she needed to stay out of the ICU when it wasn't visiting hours, she shouldn't blame herself, he said - it wasn't her fault, it was just coincidence that it happened then. She pretended to believe him, long enough for him to go away.

Miranda found her in the waiting room on the ICU floor a little before noon. Alex was sitting on the couch, hugging her knees to her chest and staring glassy-eyed at the TV, half-dry rivulets of tears covering her cheeks.

"Oh, Alex..." Miranda set down a paper bag with "New Dragon Kitchen" on its side and sat down next to Alex, pulled her into a hug. "I saw he's not in the ICU. What happened?"

"He's in surgery," Alex got out before her tears started to flow again. With one arm still around Alex, Miranda pulled her purse off her shoulder, dug in it for tissues, got them out and started to wipe at Alex's face. After a second, Alex took them and turned away, finished, blew her nose, then tossed the tissue at the trash can. It bounced off the rim onto the floor, but both girls ignored that.

"He's bleeding in his brain. They're going to drill a hole in his skull and drain the blood, then try to stop the bleeding. The doctor said they'd be in surgery for three or four hours... if it goes well."

"He's going to be fine," Miranda said, laying a hand on Alex's knee while she reached for the bag of food with the other one. "This is one of the best hospitals in the world. They'll take good care of him. Right now, we need to take care of _you_. You being a basket case isn't going to help anybody, Alex."

She opened a carton of sesame chicken, stuck it in Alex's hand, then gave her a pair of chopsticks. "Eat. I'll bet you didn't even have any breakfast, did you?"

"Sure I did. It was a bag of M&Ms and a Coke," Alex said with a sour smile. "I saved the green ones for when Justin's healthy again, because... you know."

"Yeah... that's a healthy breakfast. And that thing about the green ones is a myth." Miranda pointed to the carton, said, "Chicken. Rice. Vegetables, even. Oh, and their tea is great." Grabbing one of the two styrofoam cups, she moved it in front of Alex, then set a straw in front of it before getting her own carton out of the bag.

The two of them ate in silence for a few minutes before Miranda asked, "So... where's the rest of your family?"

"Max is at school. Mom was here earlier - they called my parents when Justin had his seizure. Dad's running the store. I think he's worried about how much this is all going to cost. I mean, Justin has insurance, but it might not cover everything."

Miranda nodded. "Good. But... are you getting along with them okay?"

"Yeah." Alex nodded. "But I'm not going back home with them." Alex looked at Miranda, said, "I... I can't explain why I can't right now. But please, can I -"

"Yes." Miranda put a hand on Alex's wrist, squeezed it. "Don't worry about it. You can stay with me as long as you need to."

"Thank you," Alex said, and smiled at the other girl. After a moment, she said it again, more slowly. "Thank you. Really."

"You're welcome. Now -"

"Is Alexandra Russo in here?" A stocky man in blue scrubs was leaning in through the door, looking at the two girls.

"That's me," Alex said, setting food aside as she started to stand, but the man waved her down.

"Don't get up. The ICU nurse just asked me to run down and let you know that your brother's back from surgery."

"How is he?" Alex asked immediately.

"I'm just an orderly, you'll need to talk to the doctor about that." He paused, then offered, "But it's a good sign that they sent him back up here so quick, instead of keeping him in recovery longer."

"Can I come see him?"

The orderly frowned, then said, "Give it ten minutes. They're still hooking him up." He looked at her food, said, "Finish eating. You need to take care of yourself too."

"Yeah, I've been telling her that," Miranda said with a bit of a smile, then reached up and tugged down on Alex's wrist as the orderly backed out. "Sit down. Finish eating. Then we'll go see him."

Justin looked horrible to Alex. Objectively, he probably didn't look that bad - but she somehow hadn't been expecting to see his head shaved behind the right ear, and a large dressing there. Miranda had had to leave for her two o'clock class, but was going to come back later, and for now, Alex was sitting by Justin's bedside, holding his hand most of the time, trying to study some as she sat desperately hoping for him to wake up. She was watching how he was breathing with the open GED book in her lap when she felt the touch on her shoulder.

"Hi. I came as soon as I got out of school."

Alex turned her head slowly to look up at Harper. "Hi," she said back, and the subdued tone of her voice, so different from her usual snarky and sarcastic self, was almost enough to make Harper cry all on its own.

"I'm sorry I ran away from you like that Monday." Harper said, pulling a chair closer to Alex and sitting down by her.

"I... I don't really want to talk about that," Alex said. There was no heat in it, just a simple admission. "Not right here. Not right now."

"We don't have to talk about anything. But I'm still your friend, Alex. I'm here. Just tell me what you need."

Alex turned to face Harper, opened her mouth, stopped, shook her head. After a moment, she let out a breath, and finally said, "I need Justin to get better. I need _him_. I... it's like half of me is dying here." She stopped and swallowed, then went on. "He's always been there, my whole life. I've never gone a day without seeing him. Even when we'd fight, he was _there._ He..." Alex shut her eyes hard, squeezing out tears, her mouth drawing up in pain, and she started to turn away from Harper.

"Come here," Harper said, reaching for Alex and drawing her into a hug, with Alex sideways against her. "I'm not mad at you now. I'm here. It's going to be okay, Alex."

"Harper - I… I…." Alex stopped and took a breath, trying to stop crying - and then someone squeezed her hand.

The hand that was holding onto Justin's.

She raised her head with a jerk, stared at him as his lips moved, the voice coming out from between them barely audible. "Alex. Don't cry. I'll fix it. Don't cry."


	14. Chapter 14

Justin started to sit up, and Alex jumped from her chair, spilling the book onto the floor, put her hands on his chest and pushed down lightly. "Don't try to sit up," she said, smiling and crying at the same time. "Oh, Justin... I'm so glad you woke up! I love you!"

His eyes were open, but only halfway, and his gaze was glassy as he looked up at Alex. "I love you too. Don't cry. Why are you crying?" He started to lift his arm to touch her face, then hissed through his teeth. "Oh... oh, _fuck_," he let out, surprising Alex and Harper both. "My shoulder _hurts_."

"Just stay still," Harper said. "I'll get the nurse." She moved away as Alex nodded gratefully to her, then looked back at Justin again.

Alex just kept smiling, moved her hand up to touch Justin's face, stroking his cheek. "I've been so worried."

"Worried?" He blinked, looking puzzled. "What about?"

"What about? What _about?_" Alex made her first real laugh in two days, leaned down and kissed him on the forehead. "About _you_. You got hit by a car. Don't you remember?"

"A car? No." Justin shook his head a little, then winced. "But judging from how I'm feeling, I believe you."

The nurse - a different one from in the morning - moved in on the other side of Justin, said, "Excuse me. Sir, I need to ask you a few questions."

"What? Oh, hi. I'm Justin. Not Sir Justin." Alex covered her face as she tried to keep from giggling at that.

"That's very good, Justin. How old are you?"

"Nineteen," he answered, then licked his lips. "Can I have some water?"

"Of course," the nurse said, "I've got some right here." She lifted a plastic cup with a straw up in front of Justin, said, "Use your left hand, and sip slowly. Your right collarbone was broken, so you'll need to not use that arm for anything right now. You haven't had any pain medicine, since you've been comatose, but a doctor will be up shortly to examine you, and he'll prescribe you some once he's decided what it's safe to give you. Now, can you tell me where you live?"

As the nurse continued with her questions, checking how aware and oriented Justin was, Alex simply watching him and smiling, feeling incredibly relieved that he was awake and seemed okay - a little loopy, maybe, but okay. "Oh," she said then, "I need to go call Mom and Dad... they should know you're awake too."

She started to get up, reluctantly letting go of Justin's hand, but Harper put a hand on her shoulder, pushed down. "No. You stay here. I'll go call them."

"Thanks," Alex said, and settled back down into her chair, took Justin's hand as Harper walked out into the hallway - and then she let go of his hand again and stood quickly, saying "I'll be right back," as she did.

Alex hurried out into the hallway and turned toward the phone, broke into a run to catch Harper before she got to it. "Wait, Harper! Umm... we need to talk before you call them."

"What?" Harper turned back to Alex and frowned. "What about?"

"Well... about five months ago, I had a little accident with the duplication spell, and... there's two of me. And Mom and Dad don't know. So you can't say that I'm here."

Harper stared at Alex for a moment, then shook her head quickly. "_What?_ There's _two_ of you? And..." She stopped then, eyes widening as she realized the implications. "You've been living with Justin since then, haven't you? And... and your duplicate is the one living at home. Oh my God, Alex, how could you not _tell _me this?" Harper stomped angrily on the floor, then crossed her arms, staring hard at Alex. "I'm _supposed_ to be your best friend!"

"You are my best friend! But..." Alex shook her head quickly, then gestured wildly with her right hand. "You also had a crush on Justin for years! I thought you'd hate me if you knew! And Justin had made me promise not to tell _anyone_. I've spent as much time with you as I could - hell, I've been missing you like crazy the last few months, since I haven't been going to school with you, but it didn't feel fair to tell Lexie she couldn't spend time with you outside of school, and -"

"Lexie?" Harper frowned, asked, "Who's - oh, that's the duplicate?"

"Yeah. Or she was a duplicate to start with, but... if a duplicate starts to have actual emotions, they become real. That's what happened to her. So... she's like another me. So you're _her_ best friend too." Alex paused, then suddenly smiled. "We've actually fought about you a few times, about who'd get to go with you for things."

"Wait - you fought over me?" Harper bounced up and down, then hugged Alex for a moment. "Oh... that's so sweet! Nobody's every fought over me before!"

"Well, we did," Alex said, much more quietly. "We've got almost all the same memories, up until five months ago, so -"

Harper frowned, then pulled away from Alex and interrupted, looking at her. "If she's your duplicate, though... is she in love with Justin too?"

"No," Alex said emphatically, shaking her head. "Duplicates can be affected by what you're thinking when you make them, and when I made her, I was thinking about how weird the whole situation was, and..." She pauses a moment, then shrugged. "Somehow she came out that way." _And she might be gay. Or bi. But I think I'll let Lexie tell Harper that herself._

"All right, well... I guess that makes things simpler. Is there anything _else_ I need to know?"

"No, that's it. No more secrets, Harper." Alex smiled, then hugged Harper again. "You have no idea how much I missed being able to talk to you about things. I'm really glad to have you back." She let go and turned to go back to the ICU, but Harper spoke again.

"Uhh... is there any way to tell the two of you apart? I mean, without having to ask?"

"Not usually... but right now, I'm the one with the bruise," Alex said, gesturing to her face, then rolled her eyes. "Though we're covering that up when my parents and Max are around, so Lexie and I could switch off and both spend time with them."

"Oh - I'd meant to ask you about that," Harper said, moving closer and looking at Alex's bruise. "What happened?"

"I managed to fall on my face. And further details would embarrass both of us," Alex finished with a roll of her eyes. "So let's not go there."

"Okay," Harper answered with a nod. "You should get some arnica gel to put on it, though."

Alex laughed at that, said, "Yeah - Justin got me some, but I forgot about it, with him in the hospital. I'll put more on it tonight. Right now I'm more worried about him."

"Go back to him, then!" Harper made shooing motions. "I'll call your parents."

"Thanks," Alex said, and ran back to the ICU and Justin.

* * *

Hospitals, like any bureaucracy, work slowly. The doctors kept Justin in the ICU overnight - so Alex spent another night with Miranda. This one was a much happier evening, though, as they ate popcorn (and threw some at each other, much to Shelly's annoyance) and watched trash TV, talking about how amazingly stupid the people on the shows were.

Thursday morning, Alex went back to Justin's dorm room and gathered books, a writing tablet and pencils, and his DS and several games. She also got his own toiletries - and hers as well, since with any luck he'd have that private room and she'd be able to stay overnight with him - and some clothes.

He was finally moved to a regular room around four in the afternoon, and then there were people in and out for a good solid hour, setting up the monitoring machines, talking to him again to make sure he was recovering well, and so on. Before it was all over, Alex got the call from Lexie to say that she, Max, and Theresa were on their way over. When she left, Justin was sitting up - well, reclining, really, with the bed adjusted to hold him up - had painkillers in him, and was sounding and looking much more like himself. Minus the sling on his right arm and the shaved part of his head, of course, but Alex didn't care about that - it would grow back.

Unfortunately, it wasn't the private room that Jerry had agreed to - as it turned out, that would have been another $250 a day, and with the doctors talking about keeping Justin for a week to make sure he was healing properly, that was going to be too much, especially with them already having to close the sub shop early. As luck would have it, though, the two-bed room he was in didn't have anyone else in it right now, so it was almost as good as a private room.

Jerry, Max, and Theresa stayed until almost nine o'clock - and Lexie as well, but it was the first three whose presence limited what Alex could talk to Justin about. They offered to take Harper with them, but at Alex's prompting, she told them she wanted to stay a bit longer, and that Miranda had offered to see her home.

With it now just the four of them who were now privy to The Secret, they let Justin know that Harper had been told. He fussed, of course, but there was no way around it at this point, and faced with her grudging acceptance and promise not to tell anyone, he let it go.

* * *

"So..." Alex said, looking over to Justin during a commercial break in _Big Bang Theory_, "what were you doing over there when you got hit? The police said someone there said you'd just come out of Gem Pawn. What were you doing in there?"

Justin sighed at that as Alex looked at him expectantly. "They told you that? Well..." He paused, reached up behind his head to scratch there. "It was going to be a surprise, but I sold my Xbox and games."

"What?" Alex shook her head and gave Justin a puzzled look. "Okay... why?"

Taking Alex's hand, Justin smiled. "To get money for a deposit on an apartment. It's not much," he said, starting to shrug and then wincing, "ow - just a one bedroom. But we'll have a living room, and a kitchen, and the rent isn't much more than I'm paying for the dorm right now."

Alex blinked at this news, then stood up and quickly, but carefully, gave her brother a hug. "Justin, that's wonderful! Thank you!" She pulled back a little and looked into Justin's eyes, smiling at him.

"That is good," Harper put in. "You'll be able to have visitors, and decorate, and all that."

"Yeah," Justin said, nodding to Harper. Turning back to Alex, he said, "I know you haven't been happy in the dorm. And I do want you to be happy." Lifting his hand up, he caressed Alex's cheek, saying, "I love you." Miranda smiled at that, while Harper colored and looked back at the TV, still not comfortable with watching Alex and Justin being cuddly.

"I love you too," Alex said, then frowned. "But do you think it'll still be available when they let you go here?"

"We're not going to wait for me to get out of here. I'll give you the address, and you can go talk to them."

Miranda frowned at that. "How's she going to do that? She can't sign a contract, not even on your behalf - she's a minor."

"Not as my sister, no," Justin said, smiling. "But she can as my wife."

A startled "_What?_" came from all three girls simultaneously, and Justin's smile grew into a grin. "We have the same last name. She can go talk to them, give them the check from me, tell them she's my wife and sign the papers. If they ask her for ID, her ID says 'Alexandra Margarita Russo' - and it doesn't show marital status. _And_ she can give me the number here so they can call me and confirm everything, if they want to. They don't have any reason not to take our word that we're married."

Harper frowned deeply and bit her lip, obviously disturbed, but Alex clapped her hands together, "You're brilliant! But there's one problem."

It was Justin's turn to frown then, as he tried to wonder what he hadn't thought of. "What's that?" he asked after a moment, not coming up with anything.

"I'm not saying it if it's not true. So we have to get married," Alex said with a decisive nod.


	15. Chapter 15

"Uhh..." Harper said, her voice carrying the squeaky tone she got when worried about what Alex was doing, "you do realize that you _can't_ get married, right, Alex?"

Miranda, meanwhile, was sitting with a puzzled look, as if thinking hard, while Justin simply looked at Alex with a disbelief that quickly started to turn into a smile. Alex grinned at Harper, said, "You should know by now that no one tells me what I can and can't do. Except Justin," she said after a moment, and leaned over and kissed her brother's cheek. "But that's only when I let him."

"You're serious," Justin finally said, his tone disbelieving, but still smiling, and Alex shot him a hurt look.

"Of course I'm serious. There may not be many things I wouldn't joke about, but... actually, no, I totally would joke about this," Alex said, and broke into a smile for a moment, then looked serious again. "But I'm not. "

Harper opened her mouth again, but Alex held up a hand, cutting her off. "Look - I know we can't get married legally. But I really couldn't care less what the State of New York thinks. What matters is _us_." She stopped, then gave Justin a mischievous grin and took his hand. "So... do you want to be stuck with me for the rest of your life?"

Justin stared at Alex without speaking, and after a few moments, her smile faded, and a flash of worry went across her features. Before it could turn to anger, Justin squeezed her hand, and in a husky voice said, "I want to say this right. I only get to do it once. Give me a minute." The anger was stymied, but Alex still looked a shade worried and unconsciously gripped Justin's hand harder.

And then Justin licked his lips, swallowed, then looked directly into his sister's brown eyes, took in the warmth in them, the trace of worry that was still there. "Alex," he began, keeping his eyes locked on hers, staring into them. "Alexandra Margarita Russo. I love you. I'd say that I want to give you my heart, but I can't give you what's always been yours." He squeezed her hand then, and Alex smiled, all the worry gone from her eyes now. "I'd say that I want to spend the rest of my life with you, but I can't even imagine living without you. So I'll ask you this: would you please, _please_ consent to be mine," he asked, his voice cracking, "as I have always been yours, forever?"

She started to cry, and he did too, both smiling at each other as she whispered, "Yes. You know I will. You know I _am_." She smiled more broadly, said, "Even if you do cry like a girl."

Justin lifted his hand to Alex's cheek, caressed it. "Only for you. You're the one who makes me cry. You're the one who makes me laugh. You're the one who makes me _live_." He paused, smiled, then said, "Now get down here where I can kiss you."

Smiling, Alex sat down on the edge of the bed, then leaned over and kissed Justin, and Harper turned away, blushing again. After about five seconds, she turned and looked, and turned back quickly, seeing they were _still_ kissing. This time, she gave it ten seconds, and when she turned back, they'd stopped kissing, but Alex still had her face in front of Justin's, the two of them looking adoringly at each other.

"I wish I had a ring to give you," Justin said. "You deserve one."

"A ring doesn't matter. _You_ matter." After a few moments, she said, "That doesn't mean I'm not going to drag you around to jewelry shops later, though."

Harper put her face into her hands, thinking, _Oh, God, this is so wrong. But they're so cute together… oh, we're all going to Hell, aren't we?_ After a moment, she took her hands from her face and muttered quietly, "Well, at least we'll all be there together."

"Did you say something?" Miranda asked, and Harper blushed a little again.

"Nothing important," she said quickly. "Okay, so… are we done now?"

Alex turned and looked at her, said, "No, that was just the _proposal_. We haven't even started on the _wedding_. Harper, you're maid of honor. Come stand here by me."

Harper reluctantly got up and came over, eyes wide in her '_I don't know about this, Alex_' expression. As she did, Justin said, "Miranda? Will you be best woman?"

"Of course," Miranda said, getting up.

"She's _honor attendant_," Alex said, then grinned. "_I'm_ the best woman here. That's why you're marrying me."

"Really, Alex?" Miranda said with a roll of her eyes as she moved into place on the other side of the bed from Harper. "You're going to be that picky?" The two of them stared at each other for a moment, and then Miranda smiled. "You know, I never would have expected you to be a Bridezilla," she said, and winked.

Alex sighed. "Okay, fine. You can be best woman. But don't start getting ideas."

Justin looked around, said, "If I'm the groom, and you're the bride, and they're maid of honor and best man… who's doing the ceremony?"

"I am," Alex said immediately, and Harper and Justin both shook their heads.

"You can't be bride _and_ perform the ceremony, Alex," Harper said. "That doesn't make any sense."

"Do you see a fifth person in this room? I know!" Alex said and snapped her fingers. "Maybe we can ask one of the nurses to do it!" She held up a hand as Harper opened her mouth again. "_Joking._ Remember, nobody tells me what I can't do. I'll be both."

Harper frowned, said, "But you could -"

As soon as she started to speak, Alex stood and hissed a whisper into Harper's ear. "_Ixnay on the agic-may. Iranda-may…_ oh, I _suck_ at pig Latin. Miranda doesn't know, remember?"

"Oh… oh, right, sorry." Harper and Alex broke up their little huddle, looked over to see Justin whispering into Miranda's ear, while she wrote on a scrap of paper.

"What are you doing?" Alex asked with a puzzled and slightly exasperated look. "We're about to get married here?"

"We're writing my side of the vows," Justin answered, looking at her. "Give us a minute, and I'll be ready."

"Oh. Umm…" Alex pulled Harper away, over to the little table on the other side of the room, whispered, "Okay, you need to write me something good."

"What? Alex… this isn't a test," Harper said, looking annoyed at her friend. "Vows are supposed to be yours - from your heart. I can't just write them for you."

"Well, help me then, at least," Alex asked, glancing over at Justin and Miranda. "I'm an artist, not a writer - I know what I want to say, I just don't know how to say it." She paused, bit her lip, and looked at Harper. "Look, you know how hard it is for me to say that word with the 'p' at the start, so can we just pretend I said it?"

Harper crossed her arms and shook her head, grinning just a little. "No. You have to actually say it, Alex."

"Arrr..." Alex turned around, stomped with on foot, then said, "Okay, okay, you dragged it out of me. _Please_."

Smiling, Harper opened her purse, pulled out a little notebook and a pen. "See? That wasn't that hard, was it? Now…."

* * *

It wasn't the first sickbed wedding the hospital had ever seen, and it certainly wouldn't be the last, but it quite possibly qualified as the oddest. Alex sat on the bed again, turned toward Justin, with Harper behind her and Miranda across on the other side of the bed. Harper held flowers (fresh from the gift shop), and Alex held a few scraps of note paper.

"Okay," she said, then cleared her throat. "Mawwiage," she said, and Justin immediately cracked a smile. "Mawwiage is what bwings us togethaw today."

"Alex! What are you doing?" Harper said, smacking Alex on the shoulder.

"It's okay," Justin put in. "It was good enough for Carey Elwes, it'll work for me."

"A-_hem_. I'm performing a wedding here, people." Alex waited for a moment, then went on. "We come together today to join Justin and me together in maww - marriage." She stopped and swallowed, suddenly feeling nervous. "I, um… I believe you have your own vows written, Justin?"

"Yes," he answered, nodding, and took Alex's hand as Miranda held out the paper they'd written his vows on where he could see it, but it wasn't in the way. "Alexandra Margarita Russo, I pledge to you my love, now and forever. I will be patient, and comforting, and never selfish to you. I will play with you, laugh with you, wipe your tears away. I will support you, help you to grow, and always, always cherish you. All these things I will do, no matter what may come." He paused for a moment, then said, "Do you accept my pledges to you?"

Miranda moved the paper away, and Alex stared into Justin's grey-green eyes, her own shining with tears as she said, "I do." With that said, Alex and Justin went back to staring at each other. After a few moments, Harper tapped Alex on the shoulder, and she turned with a jerk to look at Harper, then blinked. "Oh, right. Back to me now. Justin, I have vows for you too." She paused again, as Harper fumbled them out, unfolded them, then handed them to Alex.

Clearing her throat, Alex looked at the paper, then back to Justin. "Justin Vincenzae Pepe Russo, these are my promises to you," she said, tears welling up in her eyes. "I promise -" She stopped, started again. "I promise you -"

Tears flowed from Alex's eyes then, and she bit her lip, set the paper down. "I can't read anything, crying like this. I… Justin, I love you," she said, taking his hand in both of hers, cradling it. "I love you as my brother, and as my lover. I love the way you look at me, the way you take care of me. I love the way my skin tingles when you touch me. I…."

Alex bit her lip again, then started speaking in a rush, tearing welling up more as she did. "I know I'm hard to get along with. I know sometimes I tease you too much. I know sometimes I'm mean, and sometimes I hurt you, but I never, never mean to. But in spite of everything, you love me, and I… I love you, and I can't live without you. I can't promise to be better, because we both know I won't be. But I can promise that I'll always love you, and I will _always_ be yours. Justin - will you please take me for your unlawfully wedded wife?"

"I will. I do," Justin said, then smiled. "I think this is where I kiss you?"

"Yes. Kiss the bride already," Alex smiled back. "Please."

"Um, Alex… rings first?" Harper said.

"We'll do that in a second," Alex said, holding a hand up to Harper. "And _then_ we'll kiss again."

"That's not the -"

Alex gave Harper a glare. "Who's performing this ceremony?"

Harper rolled her eyes and sighed, "You are."

"Okay. So, kiss now." Miranda moved her hands behind Justin, helped push him forward to kiss Alex. As the kiss went on, Miranda shifted forward, trying to get better leverage, mouthed to Harper, _Wow, he's heavier than he looks._ Harper stuffed her knuckles into her mouth to keep from laughing, and after a few more seconds, the kiss broke off, and Miranda was able to move back out of the way as Justin eased back.

"All right. _Now_ the rings." Miranda reached over to the window sill and picked up the two rings, each made of twisted paper. She gave the smaller one to Justin, the larger to Alex.

Alex looked down at them, then back up to Justin. "Rings are circles, they symbolize eternity, and… all that stuff. You know." She lifted her left hand, said, "Put it on me."

Smiling, Justin slid the ring onto Alex's finger, saying, "With this ring, I thee wed."

Alex stared into Justin's eyes as he put the ring on her. "You may kiss the bride. Again."

This time Justin blinked. "Don't you put my ring on me first?"

"No," Alex said, with a little shake of her head. "Weddings don't have nearly enough kissing. I mean, _one_ kiss? Isn't that kind of ridiculous?"

"Yes," Justin answered with a smile, then leaned forward and kissed Alex again, as Miranda rolled her eyes and pushed forward on his back again. They kissed for several seconds, pulling on each other's lips. Alex opened her mouth against Justin's and he slipped his tongue into her, continued the kiss. Five seconds went by, then ten, and then Miranda rolled her eyes, grabbed Justin's spare pillow, and stuffed it behind him so she could take her arms out.

Breaking the kiss then, Alex and Justin both looked at Miranda. Justin opened his mouth, started to say "I'm sorr-" but Miranda cut him off with a smile and shake of her head.

"It's okay. Just… next time, Alex, you lean forward and kiss him, okay? He _is_ still in the hospital, remember."

"Right," Alex said. "Sorry. Okay, umm…."

"The other ring," Harper put in helpfully.

"Ring. Yes." Alex took her ring, put it onto Justin's finger. "With this ring, I thee wed," she said, and then leaned forward and kissed him, putting her hands against the bed to each side of his head to do so. She pulled at his lips, played with them, opened her mouth again. This time, though, Justin didn't give her his tongue, but instead broke off the kiss and stroked Alex's cheek.

"Alex - I love you, but right now, I'm not really in any condition to do the things kissing you is making me want to do. Okay?"

She smiled, said, "Okay. But when you get out of here, we are having _such_ a night."

"You know it." Justin paused, then grinned. "Mrs. Justin Russo."

Alex beamed, then pulled back away from Justin, looked at both Harper and Miranda. "Ladies," she said then, "I present to you Mr. and Mrs. Justin Russo." Miranda clapped, and then Harper joined in, but after a moment, Harper had to stop to wipe at her face. Alex reached a hand to her. "Are you okay, Harper?"

"Yeah," Harper nodded, smiling through her tears. " I just always cry at weddings."


	16. Chapter 16

It wasn't quite as simple as Justin had thought it would be. The apartment people readily accepted that Alex was Justin's wife, but with her being seventeen, they wouldn't accept her signature on the paperwork. So Alex wound up carrying the papers back to Justin, getting _him_ to sign them (it was a good thing he was left-handed, or that would have been another set of problems), then carrying them back.

And since she was Alex, she complained about it the whole time. "I can't believe this. I'm a married woman - that makes me a legal adult. They _should_ be willing to take my signature, but _no_, they want to treat me like I'm still a kid, just because…."

"Alex," Harper said carefully, "You aren't legally married -"

"Don't care. They don't know that. They're just…."

After about an hour of that, Harper refused to be in the same room with Alex until she calmed down about it. Justin, on the other hand, smiled through the whole thing, just letting Alex's tirade flow over and around him, still basking in the warm glow of having her officially be _his_ - at least as far as the five of them were concerned.

The fifth, of course, was Lexie, who was unhappy at having been left out of the wedding, until Alex offered to do it again for her. As it turned out, they didn't do that, which was a great relief to Harper.

The phone company and cable company were more reasonable, and were happy to take Alex's signature. The bank needed Justin's signature to add Alex onto his checking account. Alex expected an argument over that, but it didn't happen, and she wasn't sure whether to credit the continued afterglow of the wedding... or lingering effects of the head injury. Harper was inclined to the latter belief, while Lexie shrugged and tossed it off with, "He knows we can forge his signature anyway, if we really need to. So it doesn't make any sense for him _not_ to add us to it."

At that, Alex gave Lexie a stern look that surprised everyone. "He added _me_ to it. Not _you_. We may have the exact same signature, but this is not _Big Love_. Get your own guy."

"Yeah, like I'd want yours," Lexie answered with a roll of her eyes.

"Who do you like, then?" Harper asked her, and surprisingly, Lexie clammed up, which led to a good ten minutes of speculation back and forth between Alex and Harper, growing increasingly gleeful until Justin finally asked them to knock it off so he could get back to sleep.

* * *

Alex spent two nights sleeping in the chair in Justin's hospital room - then he wound up with a roommate, but by that point, Alex was feeling okay enough to go back to the dorm - and besides, the chair wasn't the most comfortable thing in the world. It was another three days before they finally released Justin, cleared on his head injury. His arm was going to be in the sling for another three weeks or so, but he could finally leave.

The fly in _that_ ointment was that Mom and Dad insisted that he go ahead and come home for Christmas, where the family could help take care of him, and he couldn't exactly protest that he'd be better off alone in his dorm. And there was no need for him to be there that he could use to help - thanks to his hospital stay, he'd earned an "incomplete" in all of his classes for the semester, and would earn his grades when he was able to finish his missing assignments and take the finals. To say that Alex was extremely unhappy about being stuck in the dorm by herself was an understatement, at best.

Zeke came home, and he and Harper came around to visit. Justin and he did some catching up, but Zeke and Harper were being pretty much inseparable, which led Justin to worry that Harper would let Zeke on the secret. She didn't, though, or if she did, Zeke didn't talk to either of them about it.

Miranda came by to visit as well, which caused Theresa to ask Justin if they were back together. He denied that, even though Alex actually encouraged him to say they were as cover. Justin flatly refused, which Miranda thought was sweet. Alex secretly did too, even though she protested that Justin was passing up a perfect cover.

Mom and Dad were a bit surprised that Justin was moving out of the dorm and into an apartment, but his explanation that the dorm was noisy and there were often parties there, and he was tired of having to go to the library to study, mollified them quite well. Of course, then they insisted on helping Justin move in, and Alex and Miranda had to quickly move everything of Alex's from Justin's dorm room to Miranda's, so the family wouldn't be wondering why Justin had half his closet full of girls' clothes.

Alex went ahead and moved into the apartment, while Justin was still stuck with Mom & Dad until after Christmas - the 28th was when his sling was scheduled to come off.

* * *

On Christmas Eve, Justin was still awake in his room when Alex teleported in. He smiled and laid his book aside, started to stand up, but Alex immediately sat down into his lap, wrapped her arms around him, and kissed him. He returned the kiss eagerly, putting his left arm around her, his fingers up in her hair, grabbing on.

"I missed you all day today," Justin said, looking into his little sister's eyes. "Oh, and Lexie's mad - she came in last night to say good night, and I thought she was you, and she wound up slapping me."

Alex tilted her head and grinned. "What did you do to get the slap?"

"Oh... this," Justin said, and Alex smiled as he slid his hand up under her top. "Although she was wearing a bra, so I didn't actually get to there."

"Well, that's good, or she'd probably have been even more upset with you." Alex grinned, said, "Remember last year, when we came back from Grandma Magdelena's? We could do that again..."

"What?" Justin frowned at Alex, said, "In the living room? Why would we -"

"No, in here!" Alex smacked Justin lightly on the knee, then straightened up. "Oh, but first - it's midnight, so I'm going to give you your Christmas present!" She pulled out her wand, waved it, and a red bag with a smiling Santa on the side appeared on the bed next to her. Alex reached inside, pulled out a box wrapped in red paper with snowmen on it, tied with a blue ribbon. "Here," she said, then kissed Justin on the cheek. "Merry Christmas."

He took hold of the edge of the wrapping with one hand, while Alex kept holding onto the box, since he only had the one hand to work with. Justin ripped the wrapping, then blinked at the box. "You got me an action figure?"

"Nooo..." Alex rolled her eyes. "You're too old to play with dolls. I got you a limited edition statuette. It's _art_, not a toy."

"So... if it has no moving parts, it's art?" Justin asked with a grin.

"If you're going to analyze it to death, I'm going to take it back." Alex grabbed the box and pulled on it lightly, sticking her tongue out at Justin as she did.

He pulled it away from her, set to to the side, then leaned in and kissed her. "I love it. Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet. That's not everything." Alex reached into the bag again as Justin's eyebrows went up.

"More than one present? I don't think you've ever gotten anyone more than one present before."

"Yeah, well, don't get used to it. Here." She pulled out a piece of paper, handed it to Justin, who scanned it quickly.

"This is the GED pre-test from the book... wait. You finished it? And... you got... thirty-one fifteen? Alex!" Justin beamed at his sister, hugged her hard. "This is a passing score!"

Alex tried to act like it was nothing, but Justin's glee was infectious, and she grinned as well. "Yeah, I know! I'm going to take the test when they give it again. And then put in my applications for art school."

Justin kissed her on the cheek by the corner of her eye, then again by the corner of her mouth, then on the mouth, grinning the whole time. "That's great! I knew you could do it!"

They held onto each other for a few moments, looking at each other nose-to-nose, Alex's chocolate-brown eyes locked on Justin's grey-green. "I got you something too," Justin said then, and Alex smiled wider. "It's under the bed. I kind of had to hide it."

"Yeah? Did you get us something naughty?" Alex smirked as she slide off the bed, then crouched down and looked under it. It was, of course, perfectly clean under Justin's bed, except for one small box. She pulled that out, came back up, started to unwrap it as Justin watched, smiling.

Inside the wrapping was a plain white paperboard box. Alex opened it quickly, found white tissue paper inside, opened that... and stared at the two plain gold rings, and the matching, smaller ring with an emerald mounted on it.

"I'm sorry they had to be your Christmas present as well -" Justin started apologetically, but before he could finish, Alex turned and hugged him hard.

"Shut up. Don't be sorry. I _love_ it. I love _you_." Alex sat back a little, straddling Justin's legs. "Okay, so... put them on me."

"All right." Justin took the ring with the stone, carefully slid it onto Alex's left-hand ring finger, then moved to pick up the smaller of the plain rings, when Alex interrupted him with a quick kiss. He grinned at that, put the other ring onto her, got kissed again, with Alex pulling back out of it almost immediately and grabbing the other ring. She slipped it onto his finger and kissed him again at the same time, holding the kiss until the ring was fully on.

"Okay, so..." she said then, "please tell me you're finally okay enough for sex. Because after two and a half weeks, I'm going a little crazy here."

Justin answered her by grinning, then slowly rocking his hips against her and saying, "Merry Christmas."

"Oh..." Alex looked up and to her right and smiled as she moved her hips in return. "Is that a yule log in your pants, or are you just happy to see me?"

"I'm always happy to see you," Justin answered, but right now, I'd be more happy to feel you." His hand slipped inside her top again, glided against Alex's smooth skin, but he wasn't able to get as far up as he wanted, with the angle and the tightness of her top. Smiling, Alex peeled her top off, then tossed it on the floor.

"There you go... feel all you want. Actually..." Alex rose up and leaned forward, bringing her left breast to Justin's mouth, made a silent 'oh' as he took her nipple and sucked it in slightly, moved his tongue against it as he sucked. A shiver ran through Alex, and she put her hands on Justin's headboard, held onto it as he continued to suckle on her, reaching his hand down inside her pajama bottoms. He didn't put it into her panties yet, but stroked her through the thin, soft cotton, pressing the length of a finger against her folds as he did.

She moaned at that, twisted her torso to offer him her other breast as he let go of the one. Justin took it and suckled that nipple as he had the other, still stroking her below. Alex moved her hips against her brother's hand, pressing herself into it, and reached her own hand down, found the drawstring of Justin's pajama bottoms and pulled on the end of it, untying the bow. She grinned as she did that, said, "You didn't have to gift wrap it for me."

"I know you love opening your presents," Justin responded, his eyes sparkling just a little. "I thought you'd feel it to see what it was first, though."

"Oh, I knew I was getting _this_ present. I just didn't know _when_. That doesn't make it any less appreciated though." Alex moved off of Justin for a moment, said, "Slide down. You're still in the sling, so I'm doing the work tonight."

Justin raised an eyebrow, but obeyed. "I thought you liked me on top?"

"Oh, I do… but we can switch it around for tonight." His pants and underwear pulled down out of the way, Alex pulled her own off, left them on the floor. She started to straddle him, then stopped, looked at the door, hopped down and crossed over to lock it before coming back. "There we go. Now we won't get interrupted," she said as she positioned herself over him.

She stopped then and leaned down across Justin, holding her weight up on her right arm so she didn't press on him too much. "I'm ready for my present, big brother," she breathed, giving him a sultry look. "Can I have it now?"

"Oh…." Justin breathed out, rocking his hips a little as Alex reached between her legs and grasped him, placed him at her entrance. "Please take it. I insist."

"You say the sweetest things." Alex lifted herself back up to the vertical, then slowly eased herself down on him, biting her lip as she did, then gasping. "You feel really big this way. Wow."

After a moment, she began to move, slowly, rocking back and forth as well as up and down, closing her eyes to better feel the sensations of it. Justin smiled, watching her through half-lidded eyes, his good hand against her breast, both feeling it and helping her to move. He shifted the angle of his hips a little, and they both drew in a breath as that pushed him deeper inside her.

Alex kept up the slow pace, worried that after this long, Justin might not last very long if she moved faster, and Justin let her. _If she wants to be in control for a change… hell, why not? We've got plenty of time for me to do things to her, once we're in the apartment…._

As much as he wanted to let Alex do the work, however, Justin's body didn't want to cooperate, and he found himself moving his hips, rocking in counterpoint to his sister's movement, making the motion both faster and deeper.

"N-no fair," Alex said after a moment, opening her eyes and smiling down at him. "I'm supposed to be doing the -" Her voice caught as Justin grinned and thrust up into her suddenly, "Oh! - work."

"I can't help it… you're just too sexy for me to lay here and not do anything," he replied, then tried to sit up to kiss her.

"No," Alex said, pushing him back down. "Let me," she breathed, then lay down onto him the best she could with the sling there, brought her mouth to his, then giggled as she pushed her tongue into his mouth for a change.

Justin caught her by the back of her head and held her there, pushed her tongue back with his, back into the warm, moist darkness of her mouth, pulled his legs up as well to angle his hips more steeply, push himself into his little sister's other warm, wet cavity. He moved in both, fought her small struggles, smiled into the sounds she made into his mouth as he pumped his hips hard and fast. Justin moaned as well as he felt himself bottom out in Alex, pushed even harder, grinning as she squirmed against him.

He let go, and Alex pulled back immediately, glared down at her brother for a second. "_I'm_ supposed to be doing the work, Justin. _You're_ supposed to be relaxing and enjoying it."

"I thought that was pretty relaxing," Justin said, grinning up at her, "and I definitely enjoyed it." He moved his hips again, pushing up into Alex with a hard, fast rhythm, forcing a moan from her. "I think you enjoyed it too."

"Yeah?" Alex said, then smirked at Justin. "Let's see how you like this." She sat back up on him, then began to move up and down quickly, lifting herself up with her thighs, then letting herself drop back down onto him, repeating quickly. "Think you're the only one who can fuck hard?" She broke into a sing-song, "_Well you're no-ot,_" grinning as she did.

"Mmm… you feel that?" She kept looking down at him, eyes locked with his, then took his hand in hers, pulled it up onto her breast. "I see you do. Are you enjoying it, Justin? Are you going to come for me?" She licked her lips, opened her eyes wider. "I want to feel it. Mmm… you haven't come for what? Three weeks now? I'll bet you've got a load that'll just flood me."

She kept rocking hard on him, lowered her mouth to his ear, licked it. "Fill me up, big brother. Show your little sister how much you love fucking her. You know you want to. Mmm… do you like it when I talk dirty like this, Justin?"

His hand tightened, squeezing Alex's breast, feeling her nipple against his palm, and Justin moaned out, "Yes…." as he tried to take control again, moving his hips. Alex was ready for it, though, and she changed her rhythm, matched to his, moving with him, so his efforts gained him nothing.

"No, Justin. I'm riding you tonight. Now hold still." He swallowed, closed his eyes, managed to stop himself after a few seconds. "Good," Alex said, then started to move again, slowly at first, then pounding herself onto him again after a few moments. She couldn't keep that up for long, though, and after half a minute or so, she slowed down, returning to the back-and-forth motion. Justin began to move with her again, then, and she let him this time, bent down to kiss him again, but only for a moment.

Coming back up, Alex arched backward, put her hands behind her on the bed for support, began to move up and down on Justin quickly. This angle felt different for both of them, and Alex bit her lip and changed her pace, moving faster, but not quite as far.

Justin let out an "Oh… oh _fuck_, Alex…."

She giggled at that, said, "Yeah, that's exactly what I'm doing. Do you like it?"

Moving his hand to Alex's waist, Justin traced the curve of it, felt her hip for a moment, then slid it between her legs, letting his fingers rub her as she moved. "I do," he said. "And I think you like it too."

Alex let out a moan, and Justin grinned. "Yeah… you definitely like that," he said, continuing to rub her as he thrust upward with his hips, matching her rhythm so his hips smacked against her each time they met. His eyes closed and he drew back his lips in a grimace, let out a quick, breathy, "Alex… oh, Alex," and she grinned as she felt his release, heard the soft sounds their motion made as her brother's seed filled her.

She kept moving, and Justin began to rub her in circles now, with more pressure and speed, and soon Alex shivered all over as she came as well, then half-collapsed forward, laying half on Justin and half on the bed as she avoided the sling. They lay like that, heads turned to look in each other's eyes, Justin still inside Alex, for nearly a minute, giving each other small, soft kisses as they did.

It was Justin who finally pulled back a little, looked at his sister with adoring eyes as he stroked her hair, smiling contentedly. "So… is your honeymoon night being everything you dreamed of?"

"No," Alex said, smiling as she shook her head slowly. "It's nothing like I ever imagined. It's better." She paused a moment, still smiling, then brought her hand up, touched her brother's cheek with her fingertips, just holding them there. "You know… I never imagined us like this. But somehow… I think I always knew it was you I wanted. Does that make any sense?"

Justin shook his head. "No. But I feel the same way, so…." He stopped, shrugged, moved his head forward to kiss Alex. "It's not normal. But we were never going to be normal people. And I won't give you up for anything, Alex."

She snuggled in against him, then closed her eyes. "Promise?"

"I promise." Justin kissed her again, on the forehead, then closed his eyes as well.

* * *

Author's Note:

... and that's it for Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics. Hope you've enjoyed it! Right now, I'm continuing Ashes, and taking a break from plottage to do some Jalex smut, which will be titled "Nine Kinks".


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